 Justice Kinser received her bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Tennessee in 1974, and her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1977.Prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court by then-Governor George Felix Allen, Kinser served, along with Allen, as law clerk to U.S. District Judge Glen M. Williams, Western District of Virginia from 1977 to 1978.Allen and Kinser had also been law school classmates.