At Legal Blog Watch, Carolyn Elefant writes about mandatory CLEs:
From my perspective, mandatory CLE is a waste of time: Lawyers who want to stay at the top of their game will always take courses and read articles to stay current in their field, while those who have no interest in improving will take a nap or tap away on their BlackBerrys during a CLE program.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve attended CLEs and served as a presenter. I’ve found most of them to be a waste of time. As a prof and a lawyer interested in cyberlaw, I spend a huge amount of time keeping up with the law. Frustratingly, my state of licensure (Pennsylvania) doesn’t think that law teaching should satisfy CLE requirements. Whatever! Considering that I’ve prepped more new courses than I’d care to admit, that’s ridiculous.