Francis Russell Edward Cornell (November 17, 1821 – May 23, 1881) was an American lawyer, politician, and judge.

He graduated from Union College in 1842 where he had been a member of Kappa Alpha Society and studied law before being admitted to the bar in 1845.

Cornell was elected associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court in November 1874 and served from January 11, 1875, until his death on May 23, 1881, in Minneapolis.

[1][2] In an article in Minnesota Law & Politics, Cornell was named as one of the "100 most influential attorneys in state history."

He was noted as a pioneering trial lawyer who "established his reputation litigating the land claims that arose out of the opening of the government reservation that occupied most of the west side of the Mississippi River at the time" and as an active abolitionist who successfully argued for the freedom of a slave woman who had been brought north to accompany her owner on a visit.