Tools Assist Lawyers in Their CPD Planning
By Margaret Hollis, Policy and Program Counsel, Law Society of Alberta
|
 The Law Society of Alberta engaged the expertise of the Legal Education Society of Alberta to develop tools to assist lawyers in their CPD planning. The result is at www.CPDAlberta.ca, an online suite of confidential planning tools.
The self-assessment tool prompts a lawyer to consider various areas of learning – skills and other relevant knowledge as well as substantive law – and preferred learning approaches and environments.
The searchable resource bank lists
|  |
upcoming courses and other learning materials available from the Legal Education Society of Alberta, and from other sources such as the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Alberta CBA. This resource bank is constantly growing, and we hope to eventually include offerings from all non-profit, lawyer-owned CLE providers. Last, the planning template prompts the user to refine the plan and schedule the planned activities. There is even a reporting function, so the lawyer can easily report to the Law Society after making the CPD plan.
If you would like to learn more, please call me at 1-800-661-9003 (toll free) or (403) 229-4774. We invite you to explore www.CPDAlberta.ca.  |
| |
Frequently Asked Questions - Rules |
1. What's this all about? I already do a lot of CLE – what's new about this? What's new is the requirement of "intentionality": that lawyers must regularly take time to consider and plan their professional development, and must be seen to be engaging in such activities.
2. Bottom line, what is the new requirement, what new obligations do I have, and how much time is this going to take me? Assuming you already do CLE or other professional learning, the new requirements are not onerous:
- a. Prepare a written CPD plan annually,
- b. declare to the Law Society of Alberta (LSA) that you have a plan,
- c. retain the written plan for five years, and
- d. produce it to the LSA on request.
To prepare a CPD plan, you can use the online tools developed by the Legal Education Society of Alberta (LESA), at www.CPDalberta.ca. Using those tools will probably take 30 to 60 minutes. |
|
(The process can be done in hard copy, too, but it takes longer and loses some of the interactivity of the online tools.)
3. Does this new rule apply to in-house lawyers too? Part-time lawyers? Lawyers engaged in non-traditional practice? This rule applies to all active members of the Law Society of Alberta.
4. Can I delegate the making of this CPD plan to my assistant or junior? No, making the plan is a professional obligation involving your professional judgment, and cannot be delegated. However, you could have someone assist by doing various searches of the resource bank.
5. Do we have to report our actual hours in attendance at courses or other CPD activities? No.
6. Is this a program of the Law Society of Alberta or the Legal Education Society of Alberta (LESA)? As this is a regulatory requirement, the LSA has brought in LESA as a legal educator to develop and maintain online tools. | |
What qualifies as professional development for the purposes of this program?
"I completed the on-line assessment/template; it was fantastic. Usually new technology has its bugs, but this was very intuitive and quite straightforward. I even found a course from the Law Society of Upper Canada that is very relevant to my practice (preventing deportation) via video that I likely would not have come across otherwise."
"I think the very act of going through the assessment/template forces you to look back and appraise the actions you've done in furtherance of CPD – and of course allows you to instantly look at and access resources to address areas you've already identified."
Raj Sharma, Barrister & Solicitor, Calgary  | |
