Delaware Valley CLE News & Information

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FROM THE PA CLE BOARD REGARDING DISTANCE LEARNING

Dear Provider,

As an Accredited Provider of Distance Learning for Pennsylvania CLE, you are receiving this notice regarding 2021 distance learning policy.

As we continue to monitor COVID-19’s impact on continuing legal education, the CLE Board aims to assist lawyers with CLE compliance while recognizing the CLE planning needs of course providers.

While we remain optimistic for the return of in-person programs in the near future, the CLE Board will temporarily modify its classification of distance learning credits for 2021 to recognize live online learning by Accredited Providers as live (non-capped) CLE credit.  Please click here to review the policy in its entirety.

Please forward any questions to me and I will do my best to respond as soon as possible.  Thank you for your ongoing efforts to provide high quality training to Pennsylvania’s legal community.

Nate Graham, Provider Relations Coordinator

PACLE Board - Pennsylvania Judicial Center

P.O. Box 62495 - Harrisburg PA 17106

717-745-8676 | ngraham@pacle.org | www.pacle.org

NJ Supreme Court Amends CLE Requirements

to Include Diversity, Inclusion, Elimination of Bias Credits

The New Jersey Supreme Court has amended the mandatory continuing legal education requirements to include credits on diversity, inclusion and the elimination of bias, a change that the NJSBA has supported for several years.

The Supreme Court posted a notice to the bar last week that amends Rule 1:42 regulations to “increase the total credit hours required for professionalism and ethics from four to five credits (of the overall total requirement of 24 credits per two-year reporting cycle) and require that at least two credit hours of those five credit hours in professionalism and ethics include the completion of qualifying coursework on diversity, inclusion, and elimination of bias.” The change is effective January 1, 2021.

The notice specifies that attorneys in the two-year reporting cycle that ends December 31, 2020 are not required to comply with the new requirements. Attorneys in the two-year reporting cycle that ends on December 31, 2021 will have to meet the new requirements.

The NJSBA, as well as a number of county bar and affinity bar organizations, had written in support of such a change earlier this year.

In addition, 2016, the NJSBA supported a proposal of the American Bar Association’s Diversity and Inclusion 360 Commission – created by former ABA President and esteemed New Jersey attorney Paulette Brown -- to make diversity and inclusion a separate CLE requirement. The concept was ultimately adopted by the ABA’s House of Delegates among a group of recommendations designed to achieve the goal of fostering diversity and inclusion in the legal profession.