Dr Nicole Kornet (N.)

Dr Nicole Kornet is an Associate Professor in legal education and private law with the Private Law Department at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University. 

Nicole's academic work centres on teaching, research into legal education, and educational leadership. With over 25 years of teaching experience at both bachelor and master level, her teaching practice is grounded in deep commitment to student learning and development. Her primary teaching focus is in the field of contract law and commercial law. She currently teaches in the foundational courses on private law in the bachelor European Law School.

Nicole serves as the Director of Studies of the European Law School bachelor programme, having previously held the role of programme coordinator. She is committed to the renewal and innovation of legal education and has contributed to numerous curriculum development and revision projects at the Faculty of Law. She was a core member of the project team that redesigned the Dutch law bachelor programme (bachelor Rechtsgeleerdheid), contributing in particular to the design of a professional development track (Leergang professionele ontwikkeling). She is currently leading a comprehensive curriculum revision of the European Law School bachelor programme. 

Since 2025, Nicole serves as Educational Director the Maastricht Institute for Legal Education (MILE), where she leads initiatives in teacher professionalisation, educational career development, and the cultivation of a collaborative learning community (MILE Learning@Law).

Within MILE, she is developing a research agenda that critically examines the fitness for purpose of contemporary legal education. Her work explores how legal education can be designed to support deep learning, personal growth, and the development of professional identity. A central theme is the concept of the brave law student - students who are not only knowledgeable and skilled, but also possess self-awareness, courage and resilience, and are prepared to make a meaningful contribution to society. Drawing on insights from the legal discipline, educational research, and adjacent fields such as organisational psychology and leadership studies, Nicole's work aims to reimagine legal education as a transformative process that prepares students to meet the intellectual, ethical and emotional demands of the legal profession in a changing world. She also supervises PhD fellows whose research focuses on legal education.