Membership

Guidelines for Membership

Application

City Professional Development Groups

Guidelines for Membership

Mission Statement

The Professional Development Consortium (PDC) was established in August 1990 to meet the needs of individuals working in-house at law firms, government agencies and corporations who are charged with the responsibility of developing and administering training and continuing professional development for lawyers.
The goals of the PDC are:

1. To provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and the development of programs, materials and resources that will help PDC members provide high quality training and professional development programs within their organizations;
2. To assist in the ongoing professional development of its members;
3. To provide guidance for implementation of in-house professional development programs;
4. To provide leadership and direction in the legal community on behalf of in-house professional development;
5. To provide a voice for the PDC membership and its goals;
6. To guide outside providers to ensure the development of training materials useful to in-house training and education.

Membership Information

Membership in the Professional Development Consortium shall be open to all individuals employed in law firms, corporations or government agencies who are responsible for the strategic development of the attorney professional development program in their organizations and who devote the majority of their professional time to professional development activities. Membership is associated with the individual member and not with the member's firm. The only exceptions to this rule are the ABA Center for CLE, the Practising Law Institute, ALI-ABA and its affiliate AILTO, where membership is associated with the organization and not the individual member. Members may attend meetings, vote, nominate officers and members of the Board, and serve as an officer or member of the Board.

Membership Dues of $25.00 are collected annually and due by May of each year, payable by check or online by credit card.

Effective March 2007, individuals who derive their primary source of income from a consulting practice will not be eligible for membership. Previously members who left their organizations but remained professionally involved in in-house training were eligible for non-voting membership. Non-voting membership has been deleted as a membership category regardless of when an individual was granted membership to the PDC.

PDC Members who leave their positions may remain members of the PDC on the following terms and conditions:

• If a member leaves their firm to join another firm in a PDC-eligible position, upon providing the membership chair with a brief description of their new role, their membership will be continued
• If a member leaves their firm but intends to obtain a PDC-eligible position, they may remain members of the PDC for up to 6 months upon providing the membership chair with notice of same.

PDC Members who leave their positions to become a consultant or other non-PDC-eligible positions are not eligible to retain their PDC membership.

Application for Membership

Membership applications will be reviewed by the PDC Membership Committee which is comprised of two Board members and one member at large. The PDC Membership Committee receives, reviews, and makes membership recommendations to the PDC Board. The PDC Board makes all final decisions regarding membership applications.

Prospective new members are asked to complete a new member form describing their training and development responsibilities within their organization (attached). Membership applications are reviewed at specific times during the year and the timing of these review cycles is as follows:

* Review Cycle 2 and 4 are intended to precede the semi-annual conferences, which are typically held in the January/February and July/August timeframes. Cycle 2 and 4 application review dates may change depending on timing of conferences. Applications received after the application deadlines specified above will be held for the next application review cycle.

Participation in PDC Meetings

As noted above, participation in PDC conferences is open to all members. If a member is not able to attend a PDC conference, the member may not have a non-member firm representative attend the meeting in his or her stead.