John Kenney on Writing Songs
The Oklahoma City litigator has a way with words
Super Lawyers online-exclusive
on October 21, 2018
Updated on August 8, 2022
John Kenney knows how to speak to juries—and country music fans, too. The intellectual property attorney, who practices law at McAfee & Taft, talks about how he got started writing songs, and discusses the similarities between working a story into a song and telling the storyline of a case in a compelling way.
Kenney’s story is featured in the 2018 edition of Oklahoma Super Lawyers magazine.
“I take the idea—it may be funny, it may be serious, it may be catchy—and I put that into a story that I write out. Then I take that one or two pages and look for the key words or key phrases and try to put those down. … It’s the keys to building an opening statement and building a song.”
John Kenney
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