Canadian Lawyer InHouse

29 canadianLawyErmag.com/inhousE august 2014 BMO Financial Group is taking its drive for di- versity beyond its own staff. When choosing ex- ternal counsel, the institution's Legal Corporate and Compliance Group asks suppliers to disclose diversity statistics about associates, partners, and managers. The LCCG then uses that informa- tion when evaluating suppliers to ensure external counsel is as attuned to diversity as BMO is. This initiative led the Innovatio judges to select BMO for the Diversity, large departments awards. The award refl ects the leadership of the LCCG's newly minted diversity council, which helps en- sure BMO's employees and suppliers refl ect the communities in which the institution does busi- ness. The council consists of Bindu Dhaliwal, as- sociate general counsel, corporate affairs, Abas Kanu, senior counsel, and Neil Puddicombe, as- sociate general counsel, corporate affairs. Clearly, diversity is a key priority, but it doesn't trump all else when the LCCG selects suppliers. "Skills and capabilities are at the forefront," says Dhaliwal. "We deal with top-tier law fi rms across the country. We believe those fi rms won't hire people who don't have the skillset to do the work. From our point of view, once you have the pool of people who are qualifi ed, you should have diversity among that group." In BMO's case, getting started wasn't easy. At fi rst, legal suppliers struggled to provide diver- sity statistics, because they didn't have voluntary employee-disclosure systems. Nonetheless, the LCCG persisted and encouraged suppliers to ob- tain consent from their employees. "A number of our legal suppliers have responded positively, say- ing that LCCG's request for diversity statistics prompted their fi rms to examine their practices and address the issue of measurement," BMO said in its nomination. This program has BMO's suppliers talking and acting. "By putting diversity measurement on the agenda with its external law fi rms during its annu- al reviews, LCCG has challenged the legal com- munity to think about diversity in a way that links it directly to a business case," the bank says. The LCCG has gone even further to spread the word about the importance of diversity. The council has explained the supplier-evaluation sys- tem to the Law Society of Upper Canada and to colleagues at numerous industry group events. In future, the council plans to advocate that other major Canadian banks make similar disclosure re- quests of suppliers. the bank's legal corporate affairs and compliance group was selected for its program to get legal suppliers to include people of different ages, ethnicities, and physical abilities on their teams. BMO InSPIrES EXTErnAL COUnSEL TO HIrE FOr DIVErSITY BY stEFaN DuBOWsKI Bindu Dhaliwal, associate general counsel Neil Puddicombe, associate general counsel and director of subsidiary governance Abas Kanu , senior counsel catEgory: Diversity dEpartmEnt siZE: Large company: BMO Financial Group saNDRa stRaNgEMORE

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