“Lawyers,” I once wrote, “have an obligation to continued improvement of their professional knowledge and competence.” Not stopping there and marinating in further pontification, I waxed on about how “continuing legal education commitment forms the foundation of client service.”
That soap-boxing was almost 20 years ago. But I nevertheless continue believing that learning ought to be a lifelong pursuit — but not just for lawyers. Lifelong learning is for everybody. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever.” That famous quote once inaccurately attributed to Mahatma Gandhi still has much to recommend it — even though like much of the stuff on the Internet — it’s ‘fake news.’ The Gandhi attribution is unadulterated B.S. The actual source remains a mystery.
All that said, there’s learning and then there’s ‘learning.’ Take continuing legal education classes, a yearly requirement lawyers must dutifully follow on pain of forfeiting their tickets to practice. Last month I received a blast email invitation from a third-party continuing legal education provider to take several hours of video CLE courses coming and going via a round-trip Phoenix to Las Vegas ‘party bus.’ Sounds like painless fun and far preferable to the group bus torture I endured many years ago when we were forced to listen to an unfunny recording of the bus driver’s favorite stand-up comedian. Had we not been in the middle of the Arizona desert, I’d have thrown myself from the bus into the nearest Saguaro. But video CLE on a bus ride to Vegas? Well, nothing surprises me anymore — I’m a lawyer.
Last week, there was a different blast email invitation from a different third-party CLE provider. This time it was for a CLE round of miniature golf. “Participants,” said the email,“will enjoy 18 holes of mini-golf, 1-hour of self-study CLE, and dinner (hamburgers and hot dogs). A Supreme Court decision will be posted at each hole for participating attorneys to read and answer the related question on the back of the score card provided. Once all holes and cases are completed, the score card will be turned in to receive CLE certificate.” Like I said, nothing surprises me anymore — I’m a lawyer.
“A nettlesome beast.”
It’s been some 19 years since my friend and colleague Jim Mitchell trenchantly observed in “MCLE—The Joke’s On Us,” 36 ARIZ. ATT’Y, Aug.–Sept. 1999, at 27, that “[k]nowledge is good, but coerced seat time is wasteful [and] insulting.” A year and a half later, he was at it again, opining that mandatory continuing legal education (MCLE) was a “facade” and “a nettlesome beast.”
More recently two years ago, speaking truth to power a law professor wrote, “The primary rationale for mandatory CLE is to help ensure competent client representation, but the mandatory system fails to achieve that goal. Instead, mandatory CLE has become a self-perpetuating industry that earns hundreds of millions of tuition dollars for course purveyors but demonstrates little, if any, connection to better serving the public.”
If I asked my friend, Jim, about the professor’s comment, undoubtedly he’d say ‘Amen.’ Long before, after all, he more colorfully phrased it as” the unseemly mating of cash cow and public relations bull.” But until things change, the nettlesome beast must be fed.
And so every year lawyers in virtually every jurisdiction scramble to satisfy the state bar associations riding herd over their continuing legal education mandates at the behest of their state judicial overseers. In Arizona, why they can even fulfill those requirements through bus rides or miniature golf.
But as longtime readers here know, I prefer to give the course purveyors at the state bar associations in particular — as little of my dinero as possible. Indeed, had I an interest in a bus trip to Vegas or an appetite for burgers and mini-golf, I’d prefer to spend my money on CLE that way instead. Considering I just paid two hefty mandatory bar association annual dues invoices, the bars take enough as it is.
To that end, I share what I find by way of free continuing legal education on this blog. With the usual disclaimers about jurisdictional creditworthiness, content and continued availability, here are some FREE CLE updates:
Bankruptcy Basics for Low-Income Clients 2018 (Free)
Practising Law Institute
Six hours on-demand video
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Better Serving Older or Disabled Veterans: A Special Session on the Intersections between Veterans Benefits, Social Security, and Medicaid (Free)
Practising Law Institute
Three hours on-demand video
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“Because of Sex”: Federal Protections for LGBT People (Free)
Practising Law Institute
Three hours of on-demand video
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The Myths and Mysteries of Substance Use Disorder
Attorney Protective
February 27, 2019
12:00 PM-1:00 Central Time, 1:00 PM-2:00 Eastern Time and 10:00 AM-11:00 Pacific
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Answering the Call: Overcoming Substance Abuse in the Legal Profession
Lexis-Nexis University
February 26, 2019
10:30am EST- 11:30am EST
One hour virtual training