Rate My Professor Rene Cornish

Dr. René Cornish serves as an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of New England. She brings a unique blend of commercial and academic expertise, having worked as a research fellow in South Africa and Australia, lectured various commercial law subjects, and held senior roles in multinational corporate entities. Her academic background includes a PhD from Queensland University of Technology (2024), LLM (QUT, 2019), LLB (University of Johannesburg, 1997), and B. Juris (Nelson Mandela University, 1994). Specialist qualifications encompass Alternative Dispute Resolution (University of Pretoria/Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa, 2005 cum laude) and Labour Law (UJ, 1997). Professionally, she is an Advocate of the High Court in South Africa, a full member of the Queensland Law Society as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court in Queensland, and holds accreditations as a Mediator and Arbitrator with the Arbitration Foundation South Africa, Nationally Accredited Mediator (NMAS), and Accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner (FDRP). She began her academic career at the Centre for International and Comparative Labour and Social Security at the University of Johannesburg, teaching undergraduate mercantile law units.

Cornish's PhD research focused on the socio-legal consequences of social media on society, particularly employment law in the Global South context. Her work is positioned at the intersections of technology, social media, race, online hate speech, and marginalised communities. Primary research interests include visual jurisprudence, the semiotics of law, forensic linguistics, social media as ‘witnessing,’ hate studies, and law, technology, and humans. Notable publications comprise ‘Unsilenced Employee Voice in South Africa: Social Media Misconduct Dismissals as Evidence of E-Voice’ (2022, Management Revue); ‘Dismissals for Social Media Hate Speech in South Africa: Animalistic Dehumanisation and the Circulation of Racist Words and Images’ (2022, with Kieran Tranter, International Journal of the Semiotics of Law); ‘Textual and Non-Verbal Expressions of Cyberhate in South African Social Media Misconduct Dismissals’ (2024 chapter, Law and Visual Jurisprudence series); and ‘Emojis in the Digital Post Literate: A nested polycrisis’ (2025, forthcoming, International Journal of the Semiotics of Law). She received a nomination for the ODTA Outstanding Doctoral Research Award at QUT. At UNE, Cornish teaches Introduction to Legal Studies and Technology and the Law, supervises LLB Honours and LLM research, and acts as Academic Integrity Officer.