A native of Owensboro, Kentucky, Professor Denning earned his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and his law degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Tennessee School of Law. He then spent two years in the health law group at Baker Donelson Bearman and Caldwell PC in Memphis.
Opportunity led Denning north in 1997 to Yale Law School where he took a position as a research associate and senior fellow. He earned an LL.M. from Yale in 1999. From 1999-2003, he taught at Southern Illinois University School of Law before joining the Cumberland School of Law faculty. During the summers, Denning has regularly taught constitutional law at the University of Tennessee College of Law and in Cumberland’s Study Abroad Program at Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University. He served as the associate dean for academic affairs at Cumberland from 2014-2020.