Southern Law Association
CPD
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is further education or training or both.
What is CPD?What Is Continuing Professional Development?CPD is defined in the Regulations as “the provision of further education or training (or both) to a solicitor, whether relating to law or to management and professional development skills, intended to develop the solicitor in his or her professional knowledge, skills and abilities, and may be referred to in common usage as ‘CPD’”. There are three broad categories of CPD, referred to, respectively, as general CPD, management and professional development skills and regulatory matters. There are three different permitted ways of undertaking CPD - by group study, by eLearning and/or by writing relevant material that is published. CPD Scheme - RegulationsNew Statutory Instrument 452/2009 which came in to effect as of the 01st of January 2010 can be viewed on the below website: The CPD cycle runs from the 1st January to the 31 December in each year. The CPD Requirement for 2012 (Third Cycle)Solicitors to whom the regulations apply are required to undertake THIRTEEN (13) hours continuing professional development during the 2012 year. The Requirement of thirteen hours must be comprised of a minimum of three hours of "Management and Professional Development Skills" courses, and a minimum of one hour comprising of regulatory matters, and may be completed by means of e-learning and/or group study and/or written relevant material Management and Professional Development Skills
A frequent difficulty experienced by solicitors relates to poor management (such as poor communication with clients or problems in financial management). For this reason at least THREE hours of the total CPD cycle shall be spent on training in management and professional development skills. This is a broad heading and includes professional ethics, financial and business management, human resource management, budget control, practise management skills, computer skills, language enhancement relevant to the practice of law, *professional ethics, advocacy and client care. This list is not exhaustive.
Regulatory Matters With effect from January 2012 Regulatory Matters will be broadened to include both "professional ethics" and "risk management training". *As training in "professional ethics" also falls withing the category of "management and professional development skills", solicitors may now claim such training as part of their minimum CPD requireemnt of either CPD category "management and professional development skills" and/or regulatory matters. |