Checking In On CLE: How Long Will COVID-19 Rule Changes Last?
Mid-year is a good time to check up on your CLE progress and make sure your credits are on track -- especially for those with a June 30 compliance deadline.
Vaccinations are on the rise, masks are coming off, and summer vacations are beckoning after a long and stressful pandemic year. Understandably, continuing legal education might not be the first thing on your mind. Still, mid-year is always a good time to check up on your CLE progress and make sure your credits are on track — especially for those with a June 30 compliance deadline.
It’s been an unusual past year and a half in the accreditation world. In response to COVID-19, many states modified their Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) rules, including waiving in-person learning requirements and extending deadlines.
How long will this pandemic grace period last? “It’s a mix,” says Andrew Ottiger, Senior Director, MCLE Accreditation & Compliance for Practising Law Institute (PLI). “We’re in touch with all of the MCLE regulators and we’ve seen some states extending the changes put in place last year, some taking a wait-and-see approach, and others letting waivers expire.” To keep its Members and others in the industry informed, PLI has diligently tracked and published states’ rule changes on its website for over a year.
The extension periods put in place by many states turned out to be quite popular among attorneys, Ottiger says. “In some states, about 40% of the credits earned for the compliance year ending in 2020 were earned during the extension periods.”
States also continued to increase their allowances for credits earned online, either by waiving or removing the cap on online learning or suspending the requirement for live in-person training. Interestingly, greater acceptance of online CLE among regulators is a pre-pandemic trend, though stay-at-home orders certainly have helped move things in this direction, Ottiger notes.
So far, Ottiger reports, many states, including Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, have extended their waivers and caps on online learning, extending waivers of in-person requirements through the 2021 CLE compliance year, and some into 2022. Others, such as Indiana and New Jersey, have maintained their waivers “until further notice.”
Meanwhile, the demand for in-person training hasn’t gone away, Ottiger says. With a combination of “Zoom fatigue,” burnout from time spent on screens at home, and the fact that many learners focus better in a classroom free from distractions, there’s a “pent-up demand” for live programs, he says. “People miss attending events – even CLE events! – and the benefits of networking and catching up with peers, colleagues and faculty. An interesting speaker or topic at a nice conference center has great appeal these days,” he adds.
PLI’s groupcast co-sponsors, including various bar associations, are also seeing pent-up demand for group viewing of webcast programs at their own locations, Ottiger says, and these will be returning to the calendar in coming months. Meanwhile, PLI has introduced Virtual Member Groupcasts, recognizing that “not 100% of workers will ever be in the office at the same time again,” Ottiger says. For this reason, these programs – with a group viewing at the office and others tuning in from home – are likely to continue even when offices reopen.
Aside from pandemic-related developments, the hottest area in CLE these days may be DEI credits. Iowa, New Jersey, and Colorado all added DEI requirements in 2021. These requirements (also called Diversity & Inclusion, Elimination of Bias, and other similar terms depending on the state) are pending in at least four other states, and Ottiger says more states are expected to jump in.
“Diversity and inclusion are important to PLI, and we’re pleased to offer many programs in each state to help customers meet their bias requirements,” Ottiger says. These include half-day, comprehensive programs such as the upcoming Diversity & Inclusion in Law Practice 2021, as well as timely One-Hour Briefings such as How Can I Foster Racial Equity Now?, available on-demand.
To learn more about states’ latest COVID-19 MCLE updates, visit PLI’s website, where you can also track your credits using the My Credit Tracker tool and find hundreds of programs to fit your credit and professional development needs.
Practising Law Institute is a nonprofit learning organization dedicated to keeping attorneys and other professionals at the forefront of knowledge and expertise. PLI is chartered by the Regents of the University of the State of New York and was founded in 1933 by Harold P. Seligson. The organization provides the highest quality, accredited, continuing legal and professional education programs in a variety of formats which are delivered by more than 4,000 volunteer faculty including prominent lawyers, judges, investment bankers, accountants, corporate counsel, and U.S. and international government regulators. PLI publishes a comprehensive library of Treatises, Course Handbooks, Answer Books and Journals also available through the PLI PLUS online platform. The essence of PLI’s mission is its commitment to the pro bono community. View PLI’s upcoming live webcasts here.
