Strong seismic ground motions push steel moment resisting frames into states of severe material nonlinearity. A properly designed and detailed frame can exploit the stable hysteretic characteristics of its constituent elements, namely, beam-columns, joint panel zones, walls and slabs, to dissipate the input seismic energy. Of all these elements constituting a frame, the finite-sized joint panel zones possessing finite strength and finite initial stiffness, are ideally suited to perform this task. The paper presents the influence of joint panel zone design on the overall seismic energy dissipation capacity of the frame. A new philosophy for the design of MRF’s is proposed for consideration, which may replace the current “Strong Column – Weak Girder” philosophy.