As first deadline nears, CLE providers step up
April 27, 2008
As the deadline looms for the first wave of Illinois lawyers required to complete a minimum number of hours of continuing legal education, longtime providers of those courses and seminars are preparing for cram time in the next few months.
With ramped-up programming, new electronic modes for delivering course work, and plans for CLE fests and ”one-time shopping” events, many CLE providers intend to reach out to those lawyers who may be waiting until the tail-end of the initial two-year reporting period, which closes June 30 under the Illinois Supreme Court’s Minimum Continuing Legal Education requirements.
”We’re anticipating there will be a number of lawyers waiting until the last minute,” said Steven C. Rahn, director of courses for the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, which has provided CLE in Illinois for 40 years.
”As soon as the rule was passed, I told my wife, ‘we’ve taken our last June vacation.”’
The Illinois State Bar Association has seen about 9,000 lawyers earn MCLE credit through its programs and meetings since January 2006, said Jeanne B. Heaton, CLE director for the ISBA.
”I think we’re going to have a lot more attorneys coming to us in the next few months,” she said.
In September 2005, Illinois became the 41st state to require continuing education for lawyers. Under the MCLE rules, lawyers whose last names begin with the letters A through M have until June 30 to complete a minimum of 20 credit hours of CLE. That requirement increases to 24 hours in the following two years and 30 hours in each two-year period after that.
”We expect there are still some attorneys out there who don’t realize the scope of the MCLE requirement,” Heaton said. ”I suspect, since this is the first reporting period, there may be some who haven’t started.”
The remaining lawyers — those whose last names begin with the letters N through Z — will face their first MCLE deadline next June. The MCLE rules also require 15 hours of basic skills instruction for new lawyers.
To accommodate lawyers facing the first deadline this summer, the ISBA is planning a CLE Fest June 5 to 7 at its Chicago office and during the ISBA’s annual meeting June 26 to 27 in St. Louis.
”People can come and get credit in increments of two hours for up to 14 [hours] on-site, and, they can use our electronic CLE 24/7,” Heaton said.
IICLE has scheduled an ”MCLE Video Encore Mall” June 2 to 6 at the UBS Tower conference center, 1 N. Wacker Drive. There, Rahn said, participants can choose from a menu of video replays of titles to watch in six-hour sittings for $195 each.
At the Chicago Bar Association, ”The staff is getting flooded with calls from people wanting to know how the rule works,” said Cunyon Gordon, who chairs the CBA’s CLE committee.
Gordon said many of the CBA committee leaders plan to increase their MCLE presentations in May and June. And the CBA is beefing up its inventory of CLE programs available on DVD.
”We have a bank of rental DVDs already; those are going like hotcakes,” Gordon said.
Karen Litscher Johnson, director of the supreme court’s MCLE Board, which administers the program, said a look at other states with experience in the MCLE scene offers an indication of what might be in store for Illinois come compliance time.
”Other states have mentioned they do have a number of people kind of late in the process trying to get credits,” Johnson said. ”We’ve been talking to providers about planning for April, May, and June of this year — what can providers do to make it even easier for attorneys to get their credits?”
Well written article, but why no mention of outside and online CLE providers not located in Illinois that have recently been accredited there to accommodate Illinois attorneys.