Judge Kennedy was elected to the bench of the 164th District Court in 1992. She was reelected in 1996. Judge Kennedy resigned from the bench in December 1999. Since resigning from the bench, Judge Kennedy has served for the past five years as an Assigned Judge in the courts of the State of Texas sitting primarily in Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend Counties. She has mediated and arbitrated hundreds of disputes involving all areas of civil law. She has served as a Court Appointed Special Master in numerous cases.

In the 2003 Houston Bar Association Judicial Evaluation Poll, which rates Federal, State, Municipal, and Visiting Trial Judges, Judge Kennedy received an Outstanding Rating of 74.2%, one of the highest ratings of the entire poll. While she was on the bench, Judge Kennedy was consistently one of the highest rated judges in the Houston Bar Association’s Judicial Qualification and Evaluation polls. In the Houston Bar Association’s 1999 Judicial Evaluation Poll, she received the highest rating of any state district judge.

In 1998, she was one of three judges statewide appointed by the Texas Supreme Court as a member of the Judicial Campaign Finance Study Committee. The Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists selected Judge Kennedy as the 1999 Trial Judge of the Year. The Houston Chronicle and Texas Executive Women honored her as a 1999 Woman on the Move.