10/02/2026
I have practiced law in Kay County for many years, and I simply do not recognize the picture that has recently been painted of our local legal community.
I have personally worked with attorneys from Tulsa, Oklahoma County, and other parts of this state who have come to Kay County to represent their clients. I have not seen our courts close ranks against them because they were from somewhere else. What I have seen are judges who expect lawyers—local or otherwise—to be prepared, professional, respectful of the court, and ready to advocate for their clients.
There is also much more to the Kay County Bar Association than what happens inside a courtroom.
Members of our local Kay County Bar Association give their time and resources back to this community year after year. Scholarships totaling tens of thousands of dollars are made available to law students from Kay County. In fact, the Kay County Bar Association supports two scholarship funds—the W.B. Clark Memorial Scholarship Fund and the John Northcutt Memorial Scholarship Fund—which provide scholarship opportunities for students from the Kay County area pursuing their legal education.
These are not the actions of a legal community interested only in protecting its own turf. Local lawyers participate in career fairs and high-school internship programs. Attorneys and our presiding judges go into elementary schools and talk with young people about careers in the law and the importance of our legal system. Members of our Bar Association also participate in the Drug Store program, working to educate young people about the dangers of drugs and addiction and the consequences those problems can have on individuals, families, and our community. Last year, the Kay Bar Association also hosted a speech contest for area students and awarded cash prizes to the winners. They are the actions of lawyers investing their time and resources in young people, the legal profession, and the community they serve.
In my dealings with Rob Davis, I have seen him treat attorneys and others in the courthouse with courtesy and respect. That is relevant when we are having a public conversation about professionalism in the practice of law.
The attorneys I know here compete hard, represent their clients zealously, disagree with one another regularly, and then come back the next day and do their jobs. They work with lawyers from across Oklahoma. They support students who want to enter this profession. They volunteer in our schools. They give their time to programs intended to make our courts and our community better.
- Grace K. Yates, Attorney at Law
