CLE classes stand as a cornerstone in the legal profession, offering practitioners the opportunity to stay abreast of evolving laws, refine their skills, and network with peers. However, a noticeable shift in attendance patterns has emerged, raising the question of why more legal professionals aren't flocking to in-person CLE classes. In this post, we unravel the factors contributing to the sparse attendance and explore the changing dynamics of legal education.

1. The Rise of Digital Alternatives
   In an era dominated by technology, legal professionals are increasingly turning to digital platforms for their educational needs. Online CLE courses offer the convenience of learning from any location, at any time. The flexibility afforded by virtual options often outweighs the logistical challenges associated with attending in-person classes, making online courses a more attractive choice for many legal practitioners.

2. Time Constraints and Busy Schedules
   Legal professionals lead demanding lives, often juggling multiple cases and responsibilities. The rigid schedules of in-person CLE classes may clash with the busy routines of attorneys, making it difficult for them to allocate time for physical attendance. As a result, practitioners opt for alternatives that allow them to balance professional commitments more effectively.

3. Financial Considerations
   Attending in-person CLE classes can be financially burdensome, especially when factoring in registration fees, travel expenses, and potential time away from billable work. Online courses, on the other hand, eliminate these additional costs, providing a cost-effective solution that appeals to budget-conscious legal professionals.

4. Globalization and Remote Work Trends
   The legal profession has witnessed a significant shift toward remote work and globalization. Legal practitioners may find themselves working on cases with international implications, making it challenging to commit to in-person classes. Online CLE options accommodate this globalized work environment, allowing professionals to continue their education without geographical constraints.

5. Diverse Learning Styles
   People have different learning styles. While some thrive in traditional classroom settings, others may prefer the autonomy and self-paced nature of online courses. Recognizing and accommodating this diversity in learning preferences is crucial for the legal education sector to engage a broader audience.

6. Practice-Area-Specific Preferences
   Some lawyers continue to prefer meeting in-person, especially those from smaller, more collegial practice areas like workers’ compensation. Practitioners from these types of practice areas continue to find value in seeing each other in person for CLE programming; it offers them a chance to see colleagues and learn in a group environment.

Conclusion

The sparse attendance in in-person CLE seminars can be attributed to a complex interplay of factors, ranging from technological advancements to shifting work dynamics. As the legal profession evolves, so too must the methods of delivering education. By understanding the reasons behind this trend, educators and institutions can adapt, ensuring that CLE remains a relevant and accessible resource for legal professionals navigating the complexities of their field.

I was recently asked if there is anything unique about CLE in law schools. Gosh, that’s a loaded question! We sometimes refer to our department as the stepchild of our law school when introducing the department to new employees, and it helps them understand the types of struggles we encounter. I am not implying that we own the identity of an outcast, but understanding how staff in other departments think of us helps tremendously when maneuvering the system.

One key to success in law school CLE is to ignore the pushback we get from everyone who does not understand CLE:

• Budget Office (“Why do you spend so much money compared to Admissions?”)
• IT (“Why would you possibly need a printer at events?”)
• Academic Operations (“We canceled your room reservation and blocked all other classrooms from being booked.”)
• Dean’s Office (“Why can’t you just make the law firms give you more money?”)
• Vice Dean’s Office (“Student workers can function as staff members; however, you can’t pay them more than minimum wage.”)
• HR (“If we change the job description, you will likely have to wait six months to a year to get approval to post the position.”)
• Other Random Staff (“Do you even do work in your department?”)

The second key is to learn the rules of purchasing, university policies, and events. This is not unique to law schools—we empathize with bars, which have governmental regulations to follow. I have been at this a long time and have already passed the angry stage about being subject to so many rules to make even simple purchases such as pens. You can’t go at it alone, though, so I strongly recommend making friends with the people who click the Approve button in the system (which happens to be Purchasing in our university). There will be times when you need them to pick up the phone, and it helps if they know your name. Our primary ally in the law school is the Events Office. After all, they understand what it is to be misunderstood, because they are not a student-facing office either (for JD, LLM, or other degrees), so we frequently volunteer to help each other out when our schedules allow.

The third key is to understand that the bureaucracy makes many decisions out of your control that will directly affect you. One area that is particularly vexing is the cost-cutting cycles that come with new leadership. Our law school dean serves a five-year term and is usually renewed for only a second five-year term, so every ten years, a new dean comes in with essentially the same directive: cut costs, find new donors, and recruit the best faculty they can. CLE has a big target on its back because incoming deans are not usually educated on the value of our services. I have personally been warned in private three times in almost seventeen years to update my resume, because CLE is always on leadership’s short list when cutting costs. My advice to you is to expect a restructuring of the staff each time there is a changing of the guard. It is not a matter of if; it is a matter of when. After the 2010 revenue downfall, our uiversity decided that all Administrative Assistant 1 staff were to be eliminated. It didn’t matter that most administrative assistants had responsibilities that exceeded their classification. The university waved their hand, and the dean of each school had no choice but to comply. Given the unique nature of CLE, it can take years for the administration to understand the need to recreate those positions and then for us to train new hires into knowledgeable employees.

The fourth key is to never lose sight that we are in the business of building relationships. Wait, what? Yes, we may feel like jacks-of-all-trades with credit applications, event coordination, speaker confirmations, syllabus materials, sponsor solicitations, marketing emails, publications, video editing, etc. Your priorities should include seeking, building, and enjoying the relationships made through CLE. Because we hold CLE conferences, we have relationships with speakers, sponsors/exhibitors, vendors, and attendees. I noted above that we need to constantly feed the relationships of Purchasing folks and fellow law school staff/leadership. We can do this by continually educating those around us about CLE and how we are essential to the ecosystem of the law school. In 2018, our department fell victim to one of those mandated university restructurings, and the law school chose to cut half of the CLE positions (three of six). I was panicked, so I reached out to Larry Center. He reminded me that we are in the business of educating others, so I needed to start educating every person I encountered within the law school. He said it was evident that the law school did not see our value. We were able to get approval for two of the lost positions in a short period.

We use points such as the following to educate others:

• We reach more people in a single one-day conference than the Communications Department does from many outreaches combined.
• We interact with 300 key members of the legal community every day who serve on our planning committees—from firms and companies—and when we call, they pick up the phone.
• We still have 200 active sponsors after COVID.
• We are a profitable department, so we directly affect our law school’s bottom-line decisions.
• We keep a finger on the pulse of cutting-edge legal topics and participate in discussions about how to educate the legal community on those topics.

Please understand that your day-to-day activities are a bit extraordinary. The amount of information and number of people we bring together for a CLE event is no small feat! We all endured a very challenging season during the COVID lockdown. CLE departments from various organizations converted programs to livestreams with minimal resources. The hours were ruthless and not always fruitful, but we made a way. That is what I love about the CLE community. Don’t overlook the positives when it can feel sodifficult. You do have your own successes! Use those to educate those around you, and that will lead to more relationships and easier days.

Finally, I would like to end on a personal note. At the end of our COVID lockdown season, we lost our colleague and friend Julie Yi to cancer. Afterward, we experienced a tremendous outpouring of support from our committees and speakers. Attendees are still surprised to hear that she is gone, because she was such a steady part of our operation. Julie touched many people as a paralegal and then came to work with our department. There are days that we think what we do doesn’t make a difference, but we saw how our relationships mattered to others in the aftermath of Julie’s departure. The law school created a scholarship in her name, and we were able to get enough donations to endow it (which means it will live on long after we are gone). One of our committees dedicated the IP Institute to her in 2021 and has since created the Julie H. Yi Diversity Forum, a named session that will continue to be part of their program. I was also privileged to work on this video presented to Julie’s family: https://vimeo.com/638097412/ed15cc30f1. If I have learned anything about CLE—inside and outside of law schools—it is that we are all connected and relationships matter.

What was I thinking? Did I really sign up to write a post this month for ACLEA’s In the Loop blog? Didn't I realize that we would be in the throes of the end of the compliance period for two of our biggest jurisdictions? And I must have forgotten our New York report was due by January 31st? And what about the “surprise” CLE that came out of the blue and is scheduled to begin in two hours? Again, I ask, what was I thinking?

And as I was questioning the wisdom of committing to write this blog post, at this time of year, I realized there is no “best time”, and this mish mash of tasks is the CLE professional’s job.

A while back, I sent out a survey to the ACLEA In-House SIG asking about the size of a law firm’s CLE/Compliance team and the type of support the team provides. Sixteen surveys were returned.

• Seven of the respondents were with large law firms of 1000+ attorneys with CLE/Compliance staff sizes of 1-5. (Yes, you read correctly. Two of the large firms have 1 CLE professional to support their CLE and compliance and two firms employ 2 CLE staff each.)
• All 16 firms create and host internal programming and serve as program sponsor for client-facing CLE programs.
• Internal programming: 8 (50%) of the firms accredited between 1-100 programs; 5 firms accredited 250+.
• External programming: 8 (50%) of the firms accredited between 1-100 programs; 3 firms accredited 200+.

Our titles are many: CLE Administrator, CLE Specialist, CLE Coordinator, Professional Development & CLE Specialist, Firm CLE Manager, CLE Compliance Manager, and many with the same nouns but in a different order!

And remember the mish mash of tasks I referred to at the beginning? Here are just a few examples taken from the survey:

• Program Accreditation: We process the CLE applications, update and adjust credits, and issue internal and external CLE certificates. We also support internal attorney compliance by responding to CLE-related questions and following up with attorneys to ensure they've reported their compliance to the state. In addition, we complete all renewals for states in which we are accredited. We've also recently been tasked with overseeing jurisdiction bar dues and renewals. The number of programs we completed is down this year.
• Attorney Compliance: We track compliance for our attorneys (regardless of state license); update their records as certificates are received; send compliance reminders as dates near; send compliance reporting reminders and upload compliance receipts to their records; gather and record lateral hire records; send records to departing attorneys; coordinate all CLE programs (in-house; client specific; marketing) and handle the accreditation for all aspects of the program pre- and post-program matters; seek accreditation for some programs where we are not an accredited provider; and handle all attendance reporting for those states with attendance reporting requirements. Note: I'm sure I'm missing some tasks, but you get the idea!
• Mish Mash: I handle every aspect of CLE, from coordinating with practice groups to scheduling programs, selecting topics, distribution of invites, monitoring attendance, coordinating IT logistics, maintaining accredited provider status or applying for CLE in states where we are not APs, CLE credit data entry, working with our BD team to do all the above for client programs, contacting new attorneys to distribute firm CLE tracking process and opportunities, working with outside CLE vendors to troubleshoot credit issues...etc...

I realize that what comes across our desks is varied and often challenging, and it is all in a day’s work! Do I enjoy it? Yes, or I wouldn’t be doing it! And the ACLEA In-House SIG has been a life saver. Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but sharing our collective pain — ok, challenges — makes me realize that I have a group of CLE professionals whom I can reach out to for advice and answers. If you are an In-House CLE professional and have not joined the In-House SIG I can only ask: why not? If interested in joining the In-house SIG you can join through the ACLEA website or email me directly at celesteallen@dwt.com.

Thanks for reading this to the end. Hope to see you in Vancouver in July!

Okay, CLE professionals – this one’s for you! With all the educational service platforms and technologies at our fingertips today, it comes to no surprise that corporate eLearning has grown by a whopping 900% over the last 16 years. What’s more, approximately 77% of U.S. companies now offer online training to improve their employees’ professional development. And despite the unique needs of many law firms and other legal organizations, it’s impossible to deny that the world of Continuing Legal Education has quickly followed suit.
 
However, given the wide variety of tools on the market, it’s only logical that CLE programs have become that much more competitive, not only in terms of pricing, but with respect to the value perceived by attorneys making the future investment and purchasing decisions. No one, and that includes B2B buyers paying on behalf of their employed attorneys and paralegals, wants to spend money on Continuing Education that isn’t top-notch.
 
Therefore, we’re looking at the CLE environment evolving into a very practical, buyer-centric field that truly caters to the convenience of the target audience. Characteristic of CLE’s past life were an attorney’s responsibilities to read periodic law digests, attend lectures and seek out more traditional forms of learning to further develop their areas of expertise. Today, we’re seeing a lot less theory and a lot more practical applications of the law, more how-to’s, and more case study insights provided in CLE courses in order to resonate with the people enrolled.

Where Is CLE Headed?

Over the past couple years, there’s been a 10% decrease in live CLE programs. What can this be attributed to? Perhaps it’s the simple fact that lawyers are learning differently. Professionals in this space are absolutely becoming more technologically savvy and budget conscious, just as in any other industry. And as a result, we’re going to see a number of changes taking place:
 
The widespread use of webinars will continue to grow. In-person programs will no longer be the primary form of CLE as we begin to accommodate the younger generation of lawyers. Yes, attorneys will continue to physically attend conferences in order to develop new relationships and nurture previously established ones. But as online collaboration and networking increases, learning will quickly transition to eLearning for most legal professionals looking to advance their breadth of knowledge—and webinars and online seminars are the go-to solution.
 
CLE providers are going to diversify. We can expect there to be less emphasis on one or two strong programs or courses – and providers will feel the pressure to offer a greater variety of material (without sacrificing the quality of that material) to keep up. Top CLE providers will emerge as legal industry “supermarkets” of sorts, and as a result, subscription prices may continue to be driven downward. CLE customers paying a flat fee in exchange for access to a full, comprehensive library will be the new norm.
 
The demand for OnDemand flexibility will grow. It was commonplace in the past that viewers had to watch an OnDemand file all at once in order to receive proper course credits. Due to the typical attorney’s busy schedule, CLE providers may lose end user retention if they fail to offer an intuitive OnDemand library of content. The best providers utilize technology where legal professionals can watch the OnDemand playback in segments – through which the platform can “hold your spot” if the user doesn’t have enough time to soak up the material all at once. Today, “replays” are all the rage, and those providers who meet this need by increasing OnDemand content output will certainly experience a positive impact on sales.
 
The LMS market is going to expand. Whether it be for education, internal training or marketing support, the increased adoption of a powerful LMS tool is driving the legal industry forward. The good news for CLE providers is that the LMS market in the U.S. is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 23% over the period of 2014 to 2019. There are also forecasts cited by Jenzabar that over 60% of jobs will require some form of post-secondary education by 2020. The not-so-good news? Competition among CLE service providers will become more and more fierce.
 
Related:
Top 10 Considerations When Selecting the Right CLE platform
7 Signs You Need To Change Your CLE Delivery Platform
 
With that said, let’s discuss a couple ways you can differentiate your CLE program from the pack.

What Today’s End Users Are Looking for in a CLE Service Provider…

Today many attorneys are looking to CLE service providers to see what’s trending, to see what other lawyers are practicing, and to learn about new topics they haven’t yet considered. Here’s a brief look at what end users are attracted to in a CLE mate:  

HIGH QUALITY SPEAKERS

There are a lot of CLE service providers out there that book any seemingly qualified speaker they can find for a seminar, even if the speaker’s subject matter expertise isn’t directly related to the topic they’re presenting. Great speakers draw live audiences (and online audiences, as well). Find a speaker whom others see as a thought leader, and create a buzz around their knowledge and reputation.

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

In today’s digital world, everyone with a flourishing career is well connected. Fostering relationships has always been important to people in this field, so it’s also critical that your CLE programs encourage people to build their network, whether online or in person. Several of our clients have found that reoccurring virtual event themes and speakers result in higher success. Attorneys will keep coming back to the same virtual event provider when they find sessions helpful, and they’re actually more likely to be skeptical when a new one-time event is introduced. Keep that in mind during your planning process!

A GREAT USER EXPERIENCE

Your website should, of course, look nice and professional and be easy to navigate. The best way to know whether or not this is the case is to do some practical user testing. A CLE platform’s reliability, however, is absolutely key to facilitating seamless UX. How many times have you experienced a technical problem during a webinar (either as the presenter, moderator, or audience member?) – or even a problem during an online course, an audio conference or a web conference of some kind? We’ve all been there at some point and it’s frustrating to say the least. So it’s important you 1) invest in an experienced partner that can handle the technical details for you, and 2) that you and that partner have a plan for just about anything that could go awry.
 
You want to make sure your technology provider has advanced platform features, including:

1. Audience Interaction (chatrooms, live polling, quizzes, questionnaires, etc.)
2. Breakout rooms & breakout sessions
3. Integrated APIs
4. White-label capabilities to display sponsor & exhibitor branding
5. Detailed data & custom reporting
6. Mobile friendly
7. CART & Closed Captioning

A LARGE VARIETY OF ONLINE CONTENT

As the needs of students are being kept front and center, CLE is going very digital and providers must cater to distance learning. In order to stay relevant and appealing, a breadth of topics must be thoroughly researched and CLE planners should have an ear to the ground at all times. The legal implications of current events and world affairs make for hot-button course topics, so don’t hesitate to do a little newsjacking now and then to showcase innovation and thought leadership.

Quality and Quantity

Here’s a fun fact: In a study conducted by Acrolinx, 69% of all online content was rated as lacking quality, taking into account an evaluation of grammar, spelling, usage, style & readability, and a few other factors. The study included marketing, corporate, technical and customer support content from 340 global companies with $250 million or more in revenue – so in theory, these were companies that should have had some serious QA and proofreading carried out before publishing.
 
You may or may not have heard of the Content Shock concept – it’s essentially referring to the vast sea of content that’s out there, and that our audience members are constantly having shoved in their faces. And now we see that a lot of it is, to be frank, complete crap.
 
To break through the noise, your content needs to be high quality – innovative, engaging, informative, truly helpful and valuable to your target audience. And you also need to be regularly producing, publishing and promoting new content so that you have a good amount of it available to them, as well.

Yes, in Continuing Legal Education, it’s not just about producing high quality content. It’s about producing a large quantity of that high quality content.
 
Looking at some competitive data, we see a lot of CLE companies getting excited about a particular program they offer. Well we’ve gotten a lot of feedback from our clients that attorneys are attracted to a wide variety of topics, seemingly unlimited options, and marketing to this group is going to be more powerful when you’re able to offer upwards of 300 classes per month. The little secret is to create a synergy between all the content that you have – to make sure everything is integrated and flows together.
 
One of our clients, John Holloway, CEO of myLawCLE sums up the point here: “When traveling around the country and speaking with attorneys and legal professionals who are just hearing about us for the first time, the number one response that I hear is that they’re impressed by the broad variety and sheer amount of topics we cover that are available on our website.”
 
Note that if you keep on publishing new high-quality content, over time you’ll build up an impressive library of material that you can repurpose in numerous ways. As long as that content is evergreen, the value you can reap from it is sustainable for a long period of time.
 
As always, feel free to contact us for help with your Continuing Legal Education program. We’re ready when you are! And for more info on maximizing the results of your CE courses, check out our complimentary resource: The Ultimate Guide to Delivering a Compelling Continuing Education Experience to Today's eLearners.

In today’s remote world, it’s key to create a learning culture at your firm that helps your attorneys to learn smarter not harder. The right technology makes all the difference when it’s time to motivate your lawyers to achieve peak performance and manage their CLE.

Your attorneys need to meet their continuing education requirements, and you need to be able to convey firm learning and development expectations for attorneys, paralegals and staff – ideally, all in a single user-friendly tool.

That’s why we built CE Manager, a powerful LMS that allows firm administrators to easily track compliancy and effortlessly manage in-house programming with streamlined scheduling, branded certificates of attendance, and automated customized invitations, course announcements, reminders and evaluations.

Quickly build out custom learning plans that include mandatory courses and activities, as well as elective coursework. Our course catalogue has a powerful search engine that allows you and your learners to search for courses not only by the standard criteria such as provider, delivery method, and jurisdictional credit, but also by tailored filters including firm practice areas, competencies, and tags. CE Manager seamlessly integrates with third-party content providers such as PLI and West Legal Ed.

Additionally, when it comes to compliance tracking of continuing education requirements, CE Manager has you covered, tracking compliancy for nearly 400 professional licenses and certifications across 20 countries. We can also create customized compliance tracking licenses for your firm’s specific requirements.

In 2021, we released the New CE Manager, which can also be integrated with the New Top Performance so your firm can benefit from their powerful synchronization of learning and performance. Learning activities can be added to customized development plans inside Top Performance and evaluators can make course recommendations for CE Manager content. Together, Top Performance and CE Manager make talent management simpler.

Micron Systems is a plenary session and networking event sponsor for ACLEA’s 57th Annual Meeting, a virtual conference on “Doubling Down on Innovation, Leadership and Inclusion” from July 27-28, 2021. We specialize in cloud-based solutions for law firms covering everything from recruiting, to learning and development to performance management.

Adam Stein | astein@micronsystems.com | (201) 652-2229 ext. 135 | www.micronsystems.com