Professor

Thomas

E.

Simmons

          Simmons is a tenured professor and holds the McDowell, King, & South Dakota Trust Company Chair in Trust and Estate Law at the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law where he teaches Trusts & Wills, Estate Planning, Professional Responsibility, Remedies, a pair of Tribal Wills Clinic courses, and an occasional seminar titled Holocaust Law. He is the faculty advisor of the Saint Thomas More Student Association.

          He is an academic fellow and former state chair of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, and a life fellow and state chair of the American Bar Foundation. He is the recipient of the Cutler Award for Excellence in Legal Education and the John Wesley Jackson Memorial Award for Outstanding Professor of Law. 

          Simmons is an Associate Justice on the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Supreme Court. He also a commissioner of the Uniform Law Commission and a member of the South Dakota Governor's Task Force on Trust Administration and Reform. He has taught at every educational level: pre-K i(n a Head Start program), primary (4th grade), secondary (in Japan), undergraduate (in a paralegal studies program), and graduate (i.e., law students). Prior to joining the academy, he was a partner with the law firm of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore (Rapid City, South Dakota). Today, he serves in an of counsel role with the Thompson Law firm (Sioux Falls, South Dakota).