During the Eisenhower administration, management labor attorney Kenneth C. McGuiness served in senior positions at the National Labor Relations Board, including a stint as its General Counsel. After leaving the Board in 1959, he was the lead counsel for the Republicans led by then-Congressman Robert Griffin during consideration of the Landrum-Griffin Act, writing the compromise legislation with Archibald Cox who represented the Democrats guided by Senator John F. Kennedy. From there, McGuiness became the lead partner for the Washington office of Vedder Price Kaufmann Kammholz & McGuiness in the early 1960's, one of the several heartland labor law firms spawned by the Wagner Act of 1935.

In 1968, McGuiness left Vedder Price with his vision of creating a unique employment law firm. First, it would be dedicated to the issue or issues of primary concern of the nation's top industrial relations officers. At that time it was national labor policy because of the tremendous unrest in American industry. Second, it would do so by not only engaging in the traditional practice of labor law on behalf of individual companies, it would bring together senior personnel professionals working collectively in strong broad-based employer associations to shape the law and policy governing workplace relations.

Already one of the nation's leading management-side labor lawyers with an active corporate practice, McGuiness began developing the policy side of his vision by working with Senator Robert Griffin of Michigan, Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, and Conrad Cooper, Executive Vice President of U.S. Steel and the lead industry negotiator for pattern steel bargaining. Together, they created an organization of senior industrial relations officers from across the Fortune 500 called the Labor Policy Association, or LPA. This new organization played a pivotal role in a series of fundamental labor policy and practice issues during the 1970's, including the Carter Administration's Labor Law Reform bill.