Patrick M. McKenna

Patrick M. McKenna has extensive experience representing numerous municipalities, zoning hearing boards, municipal authorities, and planning commissions in Chester and Delaware Counties. In addition, he advises and guides private land owners and developers through complex commercial land development matters, from acquisition and planning, through the permitting and land development phases. He has represented clients on matters including townhome developments, senior care homes, national fast-food franchise developments, manufacturing plants and warehousing, and shopping center developments. Patrick also has extensive experience prosecuting and defending land use violations (enforcement cases) and matters under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law, and has shared his knowledge at several seminars over the years.

Elected as Gawthrop’s youngest chair of the firm’s management committee from 2021-2023, Patrick received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Saint Joseph’s University. He received his law degree, cum laude from Widener University School of Law, where he was a Josiah Oliver Wolcott Fellow, serving as a law clerk to Delaware Supreme Court Justice Joseph T. Walsh. Prior to joining Gawthrop, he served as the law clerk to the Hon. Anthony A. Sarcione, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County, and as an associate attorney in a regional insurance defense firm.

A member of the Chester County Bar Association since 2002, Patrick has served as President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary, as well as past Chair of the Young Lawyers Division and past Chair of the Judicial Evaluation Committee. He is also past President of the Chester County Bar Foundation. He has been a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association since 2004, where he currently sits as a Zone 9 Delegate At-Large to the PBA House of Delegates, and is past Chair of the PBA Municipal Law Section Council. In addition, he is a member of the Solicitor Section of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors.

In the community, Patrick serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Chester County History Center and board member for the Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union. He is also a past President of the Board of Directors of Safe Harbor of Chester County, Inc., a shelter for single homeless men and women. In addition, he is a past President of the Hon. John E. Stively, Jr. American Inn of Court, a 2007 graduate of Leadership Chester County, an Assistant Editor to the Chester County Legal Reporter, and a past member of the Board of Directors of the Greater West Chester Chamber of Commerce. Patrick has been named to Super Lawyers since 2019 and The Best Lawyers in America® since 2018.