Frederick D. G. "Deane" Ribble was born on 14 January 1898, in Culpeper, Virginia, to Carolina Stribling Marshall, granddaughter of John Marshall, and Frederick Goodwin Ribble, an Episcopal minister. The family later lived in Fredericksburg, where Rev. Ribble was head of the Bishop Payne Divinity School, a segregated seminary for African Americans. Deane had a brother, John, killed in World War II, and four sisters, Mildred, Elsie, Carolina, and Frances. In December of 1940 he married Mary Mason Anderson of Richmond, and they had one son, Frederick Goodwin, who lives in Charlottesville.

After receiving a BA from the College of William and Mary in 1916, he came to the University of Virginia where he earned an MA in 1917 and an LLB in 1921. Later in that year he became the youngest member of the law faculty at Virginia, and was promoted to full professor by 1927. After receiving an SJD from Columbia in 1937, he was asked to become dean of the Law School at the University of Missouri, but he decided to return to Charlottesville and continued teaching full-time at the Law School until 1937 when he became acting dean. He assumed the position of dean in 1939, and remained in that job until 1963. Although his wife died in 1964, he continued living in Pavilion X, their home of twenty-five years, and taught one or two law classes each year until he retired in 1966. Deane Ribble died December 3, 1970.

During the years that Ribble was dean, the Law School underwent tremendous change. In the thick of World War II, enrollment plummeted to forty students: "...about one-fourth women, some few persons in the Navy...and a goodly collection of 4 F's," as he described it. Only a handful of faculty members remained in Charlottesville, since many of them, Ribble included, served either on active duty or in civilian war-time jobs. One of Ribble's primary endeavors after the war was to provide a transition program for veterans whose legal education had been interrupted. The Law School began offering courses year-round to accommodate them. At the same time, he worked to attract and retain outstanding scholars on the faculty by making salaries competitive. Soon thereafter, he began planning for the enlargement of Clark Hall and the expansion of the library holdings. In 1951-52 the Law School Foundation was established with Ribble's guidance, as well as that of alumni Walter Brown and Joseph Hartfield. By the time Ribble left the deanship, the Law School's enrollment had doubled.

A respected constitutional law scholar, Ribble taught that subject, as well as real property, and public utilities. In addition to numerous law review articles, his publications included State and National Power over Commerce in 1937, and the second edition of Minor on Real Property in 1946. In addition, Ribble was involved in a number of extracurricular professional activities. In 1924 he received a presidential appointment as alternate member to the Board of Appeals in Visa Cases. While serving as dean of the Law School part-time, he also worked in Washington helping the Board with its enormous backlog of cases from World War I. In 1944, he took leave of absence from the Law School and became a full member of the Board. From 1946 to 1951, he was on the US Commission for UNESCO and was a delegate to the UNESCO conferences in Beirut, 1948, and Paris, 1951. He also represented the United States at the 1950 Conference on Freedom of Information in Geneva.

Ribble was a strong advocate of civil rights and worked actively for the cause in the 1960s. He was especially disturbed by the closing of Prince Edward County's public schools and helped form the Free School Association, which provided catch-up education for Black children during the last school year (1963-1964) in which the public schools were closed. This successful program, for which Ribble was treasurer, was funded by donations from all over the country and supported by the office of the US attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy, a former student of Ribble.

He was secretary-treasurer of the Association of American Law Schools in 1948-1950 and president in 1951. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was a member of the American Bar Association's Section of Legal Education, serving as chair in 1961-1962. In 1955-1956 he served as president of the Virginia State Bar Association. He was awarded honorary degrees from Washington and Lee University in 1949, the College of William and Mary in 1952, and Northwestern University in 1960. Ribble died in 1970 at the age of 72.