Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/68817
www.iltanet.org Approach your clients and offer help in managing the nonlegal details of their mandates. various jurisdictions and offered incredible service by holding both substantive and practice skills sessions for in-house counsel. Professional development and training has always been a goal of KM, so this creates a great opportunity for KM groups to play a significant role in client development opportunities. In BMO's case, we have partnered with local and international law firms to present sessions on relevant, trending issues at no cost — the LCCG Learning Series. It is clearly a win-win situation: Our attorneys receive excellent training, and laws firms are able to demonstrate expertise to a wide cross-section of the group. The LCCG Learning Series speaks directly to productivity. The KM team has made significant gains in centralizing quality professional development programming and bringing in-house a strong curriculum to support our legal community. We have planned and executed over 50 sessions since November 2009 (as of May 2012). We now have an average attendance of 40 to 50 people at each session (both in-person and remotely). Of course, we still encourage members to attend key outside sessions, but our goal is to provide BMO lawyers, in partnership with our external counsel firms, the ability to obtain 100 percent of their required CLE in-house. We have achieved accreditation from Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, Quebec and Ontario. We have saved over $200,000. Without the LCCG Learning Series, our lawyers would have to incur costs 42 ILTA White Paper to attend outside learning opportunities. We also cannot dismiss the amount of time it would take, especially in aggregate, for each lawyer to research, register for and travel to the sessions. In addition, many conference sessions are not held locally, so there would be travel and other associated costs. Not only are the internal sessions virtually free, but by having them onsite and available remotely through call-in, lawyers do not have to spend time and effort researching their individual CLE, nor do they have to leave the building, which reduces "downtime" between tasks. Our next step is to offer full videoconferencing, as well as recorded sessions for playback. Finally, we are able to build on the internal sessions by focussing on bank-specific issues and working directly with the speakers. Most of the LCCG Learning Series sessions have been tailored for a BMO audience, ensuring that our law firm partners are aware of any BMO-specific interpretations. This creates a cyclical pattern, where our internal counsel can rely on firms that understand our risk tolerance and strategy. How Law Firms Can Help: We can never get enough practice skills and management courses. In-house lawyers have no difficulty keeping up on current events in their own practice areas, but might have to scramble for credits on ethics and professionalism. For multinationals, what's happening globally is as important as what's happening in local jurisdictions. Speakers should be aware of cross-