Author archives

Patrick J. McKenna is an internationally recognized author, lecturer, strategist, and seasoned advisor to the leaders of premier law firms. A prolific writer on the challenges of firm leadership, he is the author or co-author of twelve books including international business bestseller First Among Equals: How To Manage A Group of Professionals with David Maister (The Free Press) and most recently Industry Specialization: Making Competitors Irrelevant (Legal Business World, 2022). He has worked with at least one of the top ten largest law firms in each of over a dozen different countries.

Dissecting The Processes of Law Firm Strategic Planning

We have been informed that 49% of law firm leaders indicate “strategic planning is more important than ever.” Another 20% say it is tremendously important. Law firms have more money at risk than ever before. They have more attorneys in their firms to communicate with. And – they are looking at bigger markets along with a multitude of new ones. Meanwhile, the world is awash in geopolitical risk. Strategic planning brings all this together by evaluating risk and opportunity – the plan itself defines what a law firm will and won’t do. The strategic path brings about the most informed and thoughtful decisions – and with the amount of money at stake – no firm deserves less. Such is the world of law firms and their strategic planning efforts as identified in a survey we just distributed to over 200 large North American law firms. This survey defines where these law firms are in their strategic planning process and where they are headed. Patrick J. McKenna and Michael B. Rynowecer canvassed and received detailed feedback from firm leaders, all from firms of over 100 lawyers in size, on their specific approach to strategic planning and their responses to 16 sequential questions covering everything from who was involved in developing their current strategic plan and how long it took, to how satisfied they were and the one thing they would change with respect to their efforts going into the future.

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Subjects: Leadership, Legal Marketing

The 2024 ‘Burning Issues’ Confronting Firm Leaders

At the end of December 2023, Patrick J, Mckeena and Michael B. Rynowecer presented 200 Firm Leaders with a selection of over 40 timely and potential ‘Burning Issues’ – and asked of them “what do you anticipate as the highest priorities occupying your leadership agenda going into the new year?” The team received responses representing firms from 200 to over 2000 lawyers in size. This paper distinguishes the challenging issues for firms in 2024.

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Subjects: AI, Communication Skills, Leadership, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Management

Examining The Inner Workings of Law Firm Leadership

We all know that the law firm leader’s job is unlike any other in the firm. One way of envisioning its multiple responsibilities is to map them by the constituencies one must address. Today’s leader must be an ambassador to the outside world as well as chief cheerleader, challenger of the status quo, and an implementer of their partners’ collective aspirations within the firm. Patrick J. McKenna, McKenna Associates Inc., together with Michael Rynowecer, President of The BTI Consulting Group, distributed a survey containing over 35 questions to a group of some 250 law firm leaders. Their data uncovered some surprising and insightful findings. For example, they found that for 56% of today’s firm leaders, irrespective of firm size, this is a full-time commitment; with a total of 81% reporting that they “perceive the challenges that they face as being far more complex than a few years back” and 13% even freely admitting they were, “almost overwhelming at times.” Perhaps surprising to some, it is not an exaggeration to state that we have leaders of America’s largest firms managing hundred-million to billion dollar businesses, all too often thrust into the role with 67% of them having no clear job description and one in five reporting it to be a “pretty much sink or swim” exercise. Ironically, having served as an office managing partner, or even as a practice or industry group leader seemed to have absolutely minimal value in preparing one for taking on the responsibility of being leader of the entire firm.

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Subjects: Leadership, Legal Marketing, Management, Team Building

10 fatal traps that explain why law firm strategic plans are DOA

Patrick J. McKenna is an internationally recognized author, lecturer, strategist and seasoned advisor to the leaders of premier law firms. McKenna’s deep dive into law firm strategic planning delivers a detailed guide on the major errors to circumvent to establish a winning competitive position going forward.

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Subjects: Communication Skills, Economy, Information Architecture, Information Management, KM, Law Firm Marketing, Leadership, Legal Profession, Management

The highest performing teams have rules

Patrick J. McKenna is a highly respected lecturer, strategist and advisor to law firms. McKenna’s experience has taught him that the best performing teams have discovered to operate effectively they need to formalize what they should specifically be able to expect of each other as members. He calls these expectations the group’s ‘Rules of Engagement’, and in this article he articulates that to be effective, these rules of engagement must be clear, consistent, agreed to and followed. A challenging endeavor in any workplace, but critical to high performing and innovative law firms.

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Subjects: Communications, Leadership, Legal Profession, Management
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