The Hon. Penny R. Moylan is a judge for the 3rd Judicial District Court of Kansas in Shawnee County. She was appointed to the bench by Governor Laura Kelly in 2019, filling the vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Franklin Theis.
Prior to her appointment, her legal career included working for seventeen years as a private practice attorney, including at Goodell, Stratton, Edmonds & Palmer, where she handled civil defense litigation, business transactions, and insurance defense litigation.
She was also a former senior research attorney to the Hon. Lee Johnson with the Kansas Supreme Court (2012 to 2015) and a deputy disciplinary administrator with the Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office (2018 to 2019), where she was tasked with investigating and prosecuting ethical complaints filed against Kansas attorneys.
Moylan received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Towson State University in 1990. She then completed a J.D. at Washburn University School of Law in 1995.
While pursuing her education, Moylan worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. She began working there during the summer (1987, 1988, and 1989) as a security escort for individuals who entered the Agency without security clearance and was later accepted into its Office of General Counsel Program for Law School Graduates. Then, while a law student, Moylan worked as a law clerk for the general counsel of the CIA and later worked for several months on a task force for the CIA. Upon graduating from law school, she was offered a full-time position with the Agency but turned it down to accept a position in private practice in Topeka, Kansas.
Moylan served as a member of the Kansas Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being Executive Committee, the Topeka Rescue Mission Board of Directors, and the Judicial Education Advisory Committee.
She was raised in Maryland, where she attended Damascus High School. Moylan is a married mother of three children.