Why are you awake at this late hour? Perhaps you’re losing sleep over the results from last month’s survey on Continuing Legal Education (CLE). Let’s end the suspense:

* Almost all of you — 97% of respondents, to be precise — are required to take CLE.
* Firms are the most popular CLE providers, with 37% of respondents getting CLE from their firms. Bar associations and online providers accounted for another 21% and 19% of respondents, respectively.
* Only 16% of respondents pay for their own CLE. It’s nice to see that employers still pay for something in these dire times.
* The internet is where it’s at: 50 percent of you have taken online CLE.
* Many of you are using those idle hours to catch up on CLE. Some 39% of respondents attend CLE once a month or more. Another 31% go to CLE once every three months.

These results are pretty straightforward. Reader responses to the question “What would enhance your CLE experience?” were more interesting — and amusing.

Check them out, after the jump.

In lieu of Wednesday’s ATL / Lateral Link featured job survey post — lolcat lover Justin Bernold is on vacation — we bring you a questionnaire about a topic near and dear to your hearts: Continuing Legal Education (CLE).

If you’re at a firm that’s experiencing a slowdown due to the downturn, with many free (and non-billable) hours to kill, now is a good time to rack up CLE credits. In Notes from the Breadline, Roxana wondered: can CLE credits be rolled over, like cell phone minutes? In some jurisdictions, yes.

To take the survey, which serves both editorial and marketing purposes for us, please CLICK HERE. You can also share your thoughts on CLE in the comments.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

CLE survey for ATL [SurveyMonkey]

Lots of good stuff in the comments to our Lawsuit of the Day. It’s well on its way to becoming an official Comments Clusterf**k. This comment might be our favorite:

Wedding flowers: $27,000.

Damages sought for wrong color wedding flowers: $400,000.

Being delinquent in your attorney registration, while filing a public lawsuit on your own behalf: Priceless

It appears to be true. From the New York State Attorney Registration site:

Maybe Elana Glatt should spend more time attending CLE courses and less time suing florists. We recommend the City Bar class on Service, Therapy, & Emotional Support Animals (which we once sat through, even though it had nothing to do with our practice, ‘cause we were desperate for CLE credits).

But Elana “Party Pants” Glatt, predictably dubbed “Bridezilla” by many of you, has her defenders. Read on, after the jump.

We’re not yet done talking about Biglaw perks and fringe benefits. Today’s topic: Continuing Legal Education, or CLE.

Let’s go back to Kirkland & Ellis (which pays a $50K clerkship bonus, in case you hadn’t heard, and gives you a $350 office decorating budget). From a tipster:

K&E associates get something like $5,000 a year to go on CLE. It covers everything: airfare, hotel, food, etc.

You can go on those boondoggles with Justice Scalia, at the Ritz-Carlton in Colorado. Or you can go to Amsterdam and party.

A CLE allowance of five grand sounds pretty great. Is our tipster correct about this? And is any other firm similarly generous?

P.S. CLE is on our mind because we just paid our New York bar dues (and filled out our CLE certification). We still keep up with our CLE requirements, ‘cause you never know. And we’ll be scooping up some CLE credits on Friday and Saturday, when we’ll be covering the 2007 ACS National Convention here in DC. Marsha Marsha Marsha!!!

Update: Yeah, we know we aren’t required to stay current with our New York CLE. But doing so gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, that’s all.

(Yes, we know. According to Gawker, the formulation “Best. [X]. Ever.” is a blog-media cliché. But we don’t care. And we doubt that this cliché has ever been deployed in the context of Continuing Legal Education — so we get a free pass.)

If you’re (1) short on New York CLE credits, and (2) as transfixed as we are by the Biglaw train wreck called Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell, have we got a suggestion for you.

A reader tipped us off to this CLE event, taking place on March 8 at the Princeton Club in New York:

Employment Law for the General Practitioner and Corporate Counselor
Thursday, March 8, 2007

7.5 TOTAL CREDITS: 6.0 credit hours of practice management and/or professional practice; 0.5 credit hour in skills; 1.0 credit hour in ethics

This popular, basic-to-intermediate level program, updated and revamped from previous years, is structured to cover on a practical basis the issues and problems typically arising in today’s workplace on which corporate counsel, or a private practitioner with a general practice, may be called to handle on behalf of the company or the employee.

What’s so interesting about this? The presenters. Two of the lecturers are A-list celebrities of L’Affaire Charney: Zachary Fasman of Paul Hastings (at right), who represents the embattled megafirm; and Theodore Rogers of Sullivan & Cromwell, who is working on the case in-house.

We have advice for Mr. Fasman on how to structure his CLE presentation. Check it out, after the jump.