About

With a focus on driving great customer experience and protecting the Bank of Montreal (BMO) brand, the BMO in-house legal team helps its clients understand the legal, regulatory and reputational risks they face to manage these risks and support BMO’s mission. As associate general counsel, litigation and dispute resolution, Dina Raphael leads a team of in-house lawyers and law clerks that supports BMO nationally. Raphael and her team provide guidance to the business and the compliance team who are faced with evolving regulatory expectations and scrutiny, and oversee sensitive regulatory matters as well as handling the work of a very experienced group of litigators. In line with BMO’s innovative approach to outsourced legal work, the litigation and dispute resolution team uses a value-based working model by analysing different segments of legal work and creating partnerships with external counsel based on high quality work, aligned incentives, increased productivity and cost predictability. A nominator identifies that they have ‘had the privilege of working closely with [Raphael] and her team since 2013 on the development of tools to manage costs and timelines in special loans matters. She is focused on creating outcomes that meet BMO’s business objectives, but does so in a manner respectful of the external counsel’s role and responsibilities. The result feels like a team effort – BMO gets better return on its external legal fees, and external counsel focuses on more satisfying work’.