General information
Most of the 40 states that have mandatory CLE allow, with some limitations, at least some of their required CLE credits to be earned online.
ORACLE (Organization of Regulatory Administrators for Continuing Legal Education) is a website that has a listing of what it states represents the 40 mandatory CLE jurisdictions. If you want to find your state's rules, you can simply click on a link to your state. You may be able to determine on that link whether your state permits CLE credit for the audio or video seminars, and, if so, the maximum number of hours your state permits. If there is no link on your state's site to the state's rules, the link should at least give you the phone number of someone at your state office who does have the information.
The West LegalEd Center includes a multitude of already approved programs for a variety of states. You should, however, verify with your state's administrator that the credits are still available because, for instance, some programs may be too old for you to receive credit.
You can also sign up with West to receive notifications of upcoming programs.
Other CLE sites
If you would like to have a listing of other online CLE providers, guru Robert Ambrogi has a December 2004 posting entitled “Correspondence Courses in the Internet Era.” He also has a highly-recommended blog in which he notes there that lawyers and legal groups are now having podcasts. Indeed, the Santa Clara County Bar Association is already allowing CLE credit for the Association's one-hour podcasts.
Partial list of links:
Ambrogi article on Internet CLE: http://www.legaline.com/Dec2004column.html
Ambrogi article on CLE podcasts: http://www.legaline.com/2005/03/podcasting-as-cle-from-theory-to.html
Ambrogi blog: http://www.legaline.com/lawsites.html
Oracle site: http://www.cleusa.org
West's CLE home page: http://westlegaledcenter.com/home/homepage.jsf
There is additional information regarding Louisiana's CLE rules. To view those rules, Click on the "Continue reading" link below.
Information for Louisiana lawyers - - The Louisiana rules and what's on the Louisiana State Bar Association site
Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XXX permits Louisiana attorneys to receive up to 4.0 hours of CLE credit for watching approved video presentations or listening to approved audio presentations. (Rule 3 of Rule XXX details Louisiana CLE requirements and Rule 4 deals with CLE credits.) Interestingly, you may obtain your mandatory ethics and professionalism credits with the on-line programming.
The Louisiana State Bar Association has a link to, as of now, over 100 qualifying on-line titles on its “MCLE Calendar of Technologically Assisted Programming.” There, you can search for all available programs or you can limit your search to specific fields such as Administrative, Bankruptcy, and Constitutional Law, to name just a few.
You will see references on the MCLE Calendar list to programs that are available from West (http://westlegaledcenter.com/home/homepage.jsf) and from the New Orleans Bar Association (http://www.neworleansbar.org/cle). When you find a progam on the MCLE calendar, you can go to the West or the New Orleans Bar websites for additional information. You may even be able to view a short demonstration video of the program on the West site. However, THERE IS A CAVEAT: If you see a program on either of those sites that is not listed on the LSBA MCLE site, it is imperative that you contact the State Bar Association (504-566-1600) to verify that the program qualifies for credit. For instance, some of the on-line programs that are on the West site are too old to qualify for the credit.
For more information, including a list of answers to Frequently Answered Questions, there is a link to the LSBA Support Center.
If you find other CLE programs that aren't yet qualified for Louisiana credit, and there are lots of them, you can also contact the State Bar Association (504-566-1600) for information about obtaining approval for the program.
Louisiana links>
Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XXX: http://www.lasc.org/rules/supreme.asp
Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XXX, Rule 3 regarding CLE requirements: http://www.lasc.org/rules/supreme/RuleXXXRule3.asp
Louisiana Rule XXX, Rule 4 regarding CLE credits: http://www.lasc.org/rules/supreme/RuleXXXRule4.asp
Louisiana State Bar Association general CLE information: http://www.lsba.org/CLE/cle.html
Louisiana State Bar Association Calendar of Technologically Assisted Programming: http://www.lsba.org/MCLE/mcle_calendar_tech.asp
Posted by ajlevy at June 9, 2005 11:23 AM