The firm provided legal, business, and public policy solutions in the areas of complex litigation, corporate law, environment, energy, family wealth, finance, insurance, global infrastructure, government contracts, health care, intellectual property, technology, and real estate.

[6] The firm that would become McKenna & Cuneo was founded in 1939 by Franklin D. Roosevelt's former attorney general, Homer Stille Cummings.

In a December 1999 profile of McKenna & Cuneo, the Legal Times noted that early lawyers at the firm, Gilbert Cuneo and Albert Reeves Jr., helped create the nation's first government contracts practice.

The firm focused on corporate and business law through its Atlanta and Washington, DC offices.

[6] In 2012, MLA and San Diego–based law firm Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP combined practices.