Ride the Lightning

ABA House of Delegates Passes Law Practice CLE Resolution

August 15, 2014

Last week, the ABA House of Delegates adopted the following Resolution:

"RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges all state and territorial continuing legal education accrediting agencies to approve law practice skills programs and training, including the use of technology, law practice management and client relations for mandatory continuing legal education requirements and to not restrict the maximum number of credit hours that can be earned for such programs and training.

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association encourages all state and territorial continuing legal education accrediting agencies to partner with law schools, bar associations and law student and young lawyer organizations to offer law practice skills programs and training to students and recent graduates.

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Standing Committee on Continuing Legal Education is encouraged to consider amendments to the ABA Model Rule for Continuing Legal Education to effectuate the purposes of this Resolution, including provisions for distance learning through technology, and such other issues as deemed appropriate by the Committee."

Needless to say, I was delighted to see this Resolution pass and hope that state bars will take it to heart. We have struggled for two decades to get state bars to understand the importance of offering law practice education – and giving it full credit, including ethics credit where warranted. It took years to get our own state of Virginia to give ethics credit to cybersecurity sessions whose focus is to teach lawyers how to comply with Rule 1.1 (Competence) and Rule 1.6 (Confidentiality of Information).

Kudos to the House of Delegates for passing the Resolution and here's hoping that everyone will spread the gospel to the state bars.

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