Cornelia A. Clark

Cornelia Anne Clark (September 15, 1950 – September 24, 2021) was an American attorney and jurist who served as a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 2005 until her death in 2021. Early life and education Clark was born in Franklin, Tennessee, the daughter of William Howard Clark Sr., and Cornelia Anne Ewin Clark. Her family moved to Atlanta when she was 12 years old. After high school in Atlanta, she attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where she received the Bachelor of Arts degree, in 1971, with a major in sociology. She subsequently earned the Master of Arts in Teaching at Harvard University, in 1972, and worked as a teacher in Atlanta for several years. In 1976, she returned to Nashville to study at the Vanderbilt University Law School, where she was awarded her Juris Doctor in 1979. Career After law school, she engaged in the private practice of law with the former firm of Farris, Warfield & Kanaday, where she was the first woman to be a partner, and worked as city attorney in her home town of Franklin. In 1989, Governor Ned McWherter appointed her circuit judge for the 21st Judicial District of Tennessee, covering Williamson, Hickman, Perry, and Lewis counties. She held this position from 1989 to 1999 and was the first woman to serve as a trial judge in rural Tennessee counties. While engaged in the practice of law, she also taught the subject as an adjunct professor at the Vanderbilt Law School. In May 1999 the Tennessee Supreme Court appointed Clark to the position of director of the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. In 2005, while working in this position, she became one of three nominees chosen by the judicial selection commission created under the Tennessee Plan for potential appointment to a vacancy on the Tennessee Supreme Court, and was selected for the office by Governor Phil Bredesen. Her Supreme Court service began in September 2005. In June 2006, the judicial retention commission recommended her for a full eight-year term on the Supreme Court. Her retention in office was approved by Tennessee voters in August 2006.