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.

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.

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.

Subjects: Communications, Leadership, Legal Profession, Management