He says diversity self-congratulation rings hollow without truly incorporating outside perspectives
A law firm’s survival ability hinges on its willingness to challenge its assumptions and inject new thinking into its leadership. “Familiarity is the enemy. It slowly turns everything into wallpaper,” Patrick McKenna says, highlighting how law firms often fall into the trap of relying on the same group of partners to drive strategy, year after year. He doesn’t mince words about the consequences: “We stifle the natural cognitive diversity in our group through the pressure to conform. And we may not even be consciously aware that it is happening. And any hint of strategy died when you know that these lawyers can finish each other's sentences,” he says.
McKenna, an Edmonton-based consultant, served as the first non-American and non-lawyer on an AmLaw 100 law firm board after advising leaders in more than a dozen countries.
The profession’s self-congratulation on diversity rings hollow for McKenna. “It's so ironic that firms so often pretend to celebrate diversity while systematically stamping it out. And I think I'm talking specifically about cognitive diversity here,” he says. The real risk, he argues, is that law firm leaders become so invested in the past that they can’t see the forces threatening their future. “If any firm's executive committee members cannot clearly articulate the five or six fundamental trends that most threaten its continued success, they are not in control of the firm's destiny,” he says.
McKenna’s prescription is blunt. “We need to engage in gene replacement therapy. In business terms, what I'm talking about is removing defective genes is best described as unlearning. Unlearning begins when partners are confronted with the potential disconnect between the success recipes of the past and the competitive challenges of the future,” he says. He wants law firms to “continually look for the discomforting evidence. Those things that force you to question your own long-held beliefs, a firm must disconnect before it will unlearn,” he says.
He urges firms to set up regular client advisory boards that meet with leadership to share real-world trends and insights.
Cognitive diversity, McKenna insists, is not about visible differences. “Cognitive diversity is an internal difference and less visible, such that someone coming from a different culture, a different generation, or different sex gives you no clue as to how that person might process information, engage with, or respond to change, or bring new thinking to the table,” he says. The real value comes from friction, not harmony. “When you have diverse thinking, it ensures that a team doesn't work together too smoothly or agree too easily. It's like the speed bump in that it snaps us out of our comfort zone and makes it hard to barrel ahead without thinking,” he says.
He’s seen the impact firsthand. At his first board meeting with a major US law firm, McKenna asked, “How many of the items that we're going to be covering today are internal versus external, operational versus strategic?” That question forced the board to confront its insularity, and the agenda shifted. “That became the number one first topic on the agenda of every board meeting going forward. And eventually took up an hour and a half of their reporting, what they were seeing and discussion around the board,” he says.
The profession’s inward focus is a recurring problem. “We need to break some windows and let some fresh air in. We need to understand that there's a lot going on out there,” McKenna says. He urges leaders to adopt the STEP model: “S is for strategy. We need to think strategy, not operations. T is for tomorrow, not yesterday. We need to start thinking about what's going to be happening tomorrow. What are the trends? What are the indicators? E is for external, not internal. In other words, what's going on there externally? That could be portend lucrative new opportunities for us. And finally, P is proactive, not reactive. What are the kinds of things that we could be starting to do proactively, rather than just reactively trying to fix stuff?” he says.
Change won’t stick unless partners are involved from the start. “No lawyer anywhere ever gets excited, enthusiastic, willingly supports or gets behind any plan, any idea, any change, any initiative that they themselves have not been part of and formulated,” McKenna says. The only way to get buy-in is to let people see their fingerprints on the outcome.
Meetings themselves need to be reimagined, he says. “The highest performing professional service firm, irrespective of the profession, in their meetings, did not meet once a month for an hour. They met once per week for an hour. Four different types of meetings. One of those meetings was a meeting that they had where everybody in the group came together to talk about the same thing, trends,” he says. Lawyers want to feel part of a successful team, to learn, and to gain information they can use with clients.
The threat of obsolescence is real. “Tell me, please, what is it that you know, August 2025, that you didn't know, August 2024? Put slightly differently, my beloved partner. What is it that you can do today for your client August 2025, that you couldn't do a year ago? And if your answer is [nothing], good luck. God bless. You're on the way to obsolescence,” McKenna says.
He divides partners into dynamos, cruisers, and losers. “A dynamo is someone who's always acting as though they've got a career. They're someone who's always building their skills. As soon as something gets a little bit too familiar, they're delegating it lower. And they're going after the more intellectually challenging work,” he says. The rest, he warns, are at risk as AI and technology automate more legal work.
McKenna’s frustration with the profession’s blindness to new opportunities is palpable. “Name me one law firm anywhere in Canada that's doing anything in humanoid robotics. Those are the issues that I think we're missing out on. We are totally blind to what the hell's going on out there. It scares me. It scares me for the well-being of the profession going forward,” he says.
For McKenna, the only way forward is to challenge the status quo and bring new voices into the room – before the future arrives and leaves the profession behind.
