She attended various schools in the United States of America and Australia, completing her secondary education at Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne.
In 1985 Kenny was awarded the Menzies Scholarship in Law, which together with a grant from the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Trust enabled her to attended Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, completing her doctorate in 1988 which was supervised by John Finnis.
[6] Kenny was associate to Sir Ninian Stephen, then a High Court judge in 1979 and 1980.
[1] From 1981 she practised as a barrister, working in constitutional, public, commercial and tax law.
[12] As a judge Kenny hears the wide range of matters before the Federal Court, both as a trial judge and on appeal, including workplace relations (AWU v BHP Iron Ore [13]) employment law (Walker v Citigroup Global Markets Pty Ltd [14]) intellectual property (McCormick & Co Inc v McCormick,[15] D'Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc [16] anti-discrimination law (Rainsford v Victoria,[17] and AB v Registrar of Births, Deaths & Marriages [18]) migration appeals (ALA15 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [19][20]) environmental law (Alpine Grazing Trial case [21][22]) and taxation law (Haritos v Commissioner of Taxation [23]).