subject: New York Continuing Legal Education Recent Changes [print this page] It is critical that attorneys and other legal professionals stay up to date with the different changes that take place that concern New York continuing legal education. The most recent changes went into effect on January 1, 2008 and concerns a few different things. There are also many other changes that have taken place at other times during the last few years that every legal professional should also be aware of. Here is a rundown of some of the newest changes.
There are new faculty requirements as of this date, and the faculty of every accredited CLE course or program has to include at least one attorney that is in good standing who has to actively participate in the program. No attorney who is disbarred can be on the faculty of any New York continuing legal education program. Another change that becomes effective on this date deals with attendance verification. Even though the Board s requirements for the attendance verification by providers have not changed, a new section is now added to clarify the requirements there. Specifically, changes have been made to the Regulations and Guidelines section. For every program that is an accredited CLE program, the sponsor has to be able to verify that a legal professional has completed a whole program or an entire session of a program before issuing credit to the attorney for that program or session. In addition, the provider cannot rely solely on the statements that have been made by the participating attorney or other legal professional.
Starting the first day of January of 2007, each provider of a course that is accredited by the Board will be required to use the New York CLE Certificate of Attendance. Starting November 15, 2005, all applications for accreditation of individual programs and courses have to include a complete set of written materials for every program or course that is submitted. This includes individual courses and programs, accredited provider statuses and hybrid accreditation of individual accreditation.
For Continuing Legal Education publication, credits have to be submitted in an English translation of any legal research based writing that is not written in English. As of September 1 2004, pro bono credit won t be awarded for legal services that are provided by assigned counsel that receive compensation for those services. Although there are many other changes that have taken place with New York continuing legal education credits, these are just a few of the most recent ones that professionals need to be aware of.
