How to Find the Best CLE Courses for Your Law Career

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CLE, or continuing legal education, is a yearly requirement for attorneys. Depending on where you practice, your state will have minimum requirements. Those requirements may overlap if you practice in multiple states, but it's a good idea to plan to fulfill the requirements of all states separately to avoid coming up short at the end of the year.

Protect Your Organization

CLE can also help you invest in new technologies, improve your presence on the web, and protect you from ethical concerns in the future. Factors that can get your practice into trouble include

• any legal advice offered online

• social media risks to you and to your clients

• advertising limits

• your ethical requirements in your private online presence

If your website needs an update or if you want to alter your marketing plan, a CLE course on your internet risks would be a wise investment. Make sure you also loop in your technical support team, your marketing folks and your website developer on this training. If you yourself are all three of these people, save the training videos and reference materials as tools that you can refer back to as your online offerings expand.

Go for Engagement While Meeting the Minimum

Taking a class that interests you is obviously much more engaging than taking a class that you have to take. To that end, look for CLE that would have been helpful in the past year. If you are a part of a solo practice or a small business, look for more ways to protect other small businesses from risk. Go for curiosity points whenever possible to stay interested and engaged. New regulations on electronic surveillance may be just what the tech-intensive attorney wants to study. Making sure that your Tennessee CLE courses actually hold your interest will make the investment of time and money well worth it.

Offer CLE When You Can

It's said that the best way to make sure you know something is to teach it. While looking for free or low cost CLE for yourself and others in your practice, don't miss out on chances to offer the same to up and coming attorneys in your organization and those in the community.

These events can be more than a chance to get in your pro bono hours. You may find an attorney in the community who would be a real benefit to your organization. You could find a small partnership that would be an ideal fit for loyal clients who have moved out of your scope of service. The ability to connect at the free or discounted CLE events that you offer could benefit your practice for years to come.

Go for Discounts

At the end of the day, your firm needs to bring in more cash than you pay out. Free CLE events offered by other firms, lectures that provide credit and networking events are all terrific places to pick up discounted training that you need anyway. It's also important to consider your learning style when choosing your CLE. If you tend to put off the requirement and wind up sitting in a classroom for 16 hours over two days, you may not gain as much as you would if you just took one course online per month. Cramming your CLE, just like cramming for a test in a college course, is not effective and could be a waste of time and money if you miss something vital that puts your practice at risk.

Improve Your Practice Offerings

In addition to the mandatory hours, you can bring a lot of benefits to your firm with the right CLE. For example, brushing up on debt collection law changes can help you improve the services offered by your firm, especially as we come out of the pandemic and potential clients need help getting back on their financial feet.

Conclusion

If you dread finding and fulfilling your CLE requirements, make sure that you start early. For those who have a minimum hours requirement, looking for events that allow you to shave some time off each month can reduce end of the year stress. Don't put it off and end up sitting through a training that offers little to no benefit.