Kathryn E. Barnett

Biography Overview

Kathryn Barnett is Senior Trial Lawyer for Morgan & Morgan. She has been taking on insurance companies and big business for more than 20 years. In 2018, Ms. Barnett represented a family at trial against a multi-billion-dollar corporation in a wrongful death case, winning a $13.5 million jury verdict. She has obtained many other verdicts and settlements that exceed $1 million for her clients, including a $26 million jury verdict in a wrongful death case, and an $8 million arbitration award for an entrepreneur wronged by their former partner. Ms. Barnett also served as lead trial counsel in two class action trials in the Multidistrict Litigation lawsuit arising from the mishandling of remains at Tri-State Crematory. These cases settled well into both trials, for combined judgments of over $120 million. She also served as lead counsel in a class action against the Georgia Farm Bureau regarding insurance coverage, which resulted in an $18 million settlement.

Ms. Barnett has been selected for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America, “Nashville’s Best Lawyers,” and in Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers as a Mid-South Super-Lawyer, as one of the Top 50 Women Mid-South Super Lawyers, as one of the Top 100 Tennessee Super Lawyers, and one of the Top 50 Attorneys in Nashville for many years. Most recently, she was included in the 2018 edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of plaintiffs’ personal injury litigation and plaintiffs’ product liability litigation.

Ms. Barnett has also been included for many years among the Nashville “Lawyers In Charge” published by the Nashville Post, the “Best of the Bar” published by the Nashville Business Journal, and the “150 Best Lawyers in Tennessee” published by Business Tennessee. Because of her experience and accomplishments, she has lectured extensively on trial, complex litigation and related topics to other lawyers and to law students. Ms. Barnett is a member of the Executive Committee of the Harry Phillips American Inn of Court, as well as a former President of the Nashville Lawyers’ Association for Women, former First Vice President of the Nashville Bar Association, former Vice President of the Tennessee Association for Justice, and former Chair of the Tennessee Judicial Conference’s Bench/Bar Committee. She graduated from Vanderbilt School of Law in 1992, where she achieved the highest grade in the class in Torts I and Jurisprudence. She graduated from Davidson College, with Honors, in 1989.