Sidley received Chief Learning Officer magazine’s Gold Business Partnership Award in Division II for organizations with fewer than 10,000 employees. The award was recognition for the executive education programs offered through the firm’s “Built to Lead” associate development initiative. The prestigious honor was announced at the 2022 CLO Learning in Practice Awards ceremony. Sidley was the only law firm among this year’s honorees.
For nearly two decades, the Learning in Practice Awards have celebrated organizations that demonstrate excellence in enterprise-wide professional development. According to Chief Learning Officer, the Gold Business Partnership Award is bestowed upon “learning departments that have partnered in a progressive way with business partners or external organizational divisions and functions to develop and deliver a targeted employee development program that supports the partner’s goals.” This is Sidley’s eighth Learning in Practice Award since 2011.
Sidley’s Built to Lead initiative was uniquely designed to help associates become world-class lawyers with greater business acumen and boardroom prowess. Associates can participate in a number of professional development and enrichment opportunities beginning in their fourth year of practice, including external executive education programs at top global business schools such as Columbia Business School and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
The Built to Lead initiative is an expansion of Sidley’s professional development program, which has earned the “LearningElite” designation by Chief Learning Officer magazine every year since the award’s inception. Sidley was the first law firm to be recognized as a LearningElite organization, and has received the most such distinctions of any law firm.
