A native of Lenoir City, Tennessee, Professor Cornett received her B.A. in Honors History from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she was a National Merit Scholar and a charter member of the College Scholars program. She received her J.D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she was Editor in Chief of the Tennessee Law Review and the Outstanding Graduate of 1982.

Following graduation, she clerked for Judge Edward Allen Tamm of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. After practicing law for several years in Knoxville, Professor Cornett entered graduate school at the University of Virginia, where she earned her Ph.D. in English Literature. She joined the faculty of the College of Law in 1992, where she teaches civil procedure, professional responsibility, law and literature, and the jury system. Her scholarship has been published in the Ohio State Law Journal, the Alabama Law Review, and the Tennessee Law Review, among others. She is the co-author of Sound and Sense: A Text on Law and Literature (with the late Jerry J. Phillips), and Professional Responsibility in the Life of the Lawyer (with Carl A. Pierce, Alex B. Long, Paula Schaefer, and Cassandra Burke Robertson).

BA, 1977, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

JD, 1982, University of Tennessee College of Law

MA, 1989, University of Virginia

PhD, 1997, University of Virginia