CLE providers are offering new means of learning options for lawyers in an effort to make professional development more convenient, more interesting and more worthwhile.

For many Australian lawyers, the month of March is the time to brush up on those legal skills. It's typically the final chance for lawyers to earn their necessary Continuing Legal Education points (or Continuing Professional Development in some states) as well as the time in which CLE providers ramp up the frequency of their courses in order to present plenty of options for the lawyer with some catching up to do.

But lawyers face the age-old problem of time; especially since they have little of it. While learning and development is vital in assisting them with their practising requirements - and of course retaining that practising certificate - it can quickly fall off the "to-do list" when other priorities pop-up. Forsome lawyers, the tyranny of distance, getting to face-to-face seminars, or finding a relevant seminar at a convenient location can stand in the way.

For in-house lawyer Alice Debchi, such issues were enough for her to take matters into her own hands.

"I had a colleague who went overseas and he wanted to maintain his practising certificate," she says. "He was having difficulty doing so and contacted me to locate some sources that he could use to keep up his CLE. I found it quite difficult to find anything. I thought there would be some reasonable things available on websites."

Debchi says she found very little available so, on 1 February 2011 she officially launched iCLE, a website offering filmed seminars to those who simply can't make it to the face-to-face sessions. "I thought it might be useful to people in country and rural NSW who can't actually physically get to most of the CLE seminars," explains Debchi. "I just thought that it's probably a future trend anyway [for the market], and as soon as I can I'll make [the sessions] available to download on phones as well as computers."

Debchi is right. Online CLE training is an emerging trend and one that Neville Carter, the managing director of the College of Law, believes has been the biggest change in the provision of CLE over the last 12 months. He saysit has sprung from the fact that some lawyers are already well acquainted with online learning, having done their practical legal training virtually.

"We shouldn't be surprised that an increased number of practitioners are looking to collect their CLE points online," he says.

Neville adds that the provision of online options means the choices for lawyers are wider than ever. "I don't think there are more CLE providers in the market," he says. "But I do think there are a lot more choices."

But while the uptake of online learning might be growing, Angela Kurtz, the national manager of professional development at LexisNexis (also the publisher of Lawyers Weekly) says that depth of information remains critical for a successful CLE program and that lawyers are still keen to undertake their learning in person.

"With face-to-face programs, there is a given expectation of quality content," she says.

Also, it seems lawyers want more from their learning and development spend. "Feedback from our research tells us that practitioners are seeking value-adds from CLE providers to give the best return on their professional development investment," says Kurtz. "Whether this be from integrated networking opportunities, innovative learning formats, or substantial program resources."

Sara Heard, the general manager at Legalwise Seminars, also maintains that lawyers are driven to CLE programs off the back of their content.

While Legalwise is exploring the option of online offerings in the future, Heard is not yet convinced the technology is available to keep lawyers satisfied with their learning and development. "When you've got eminent members of the legal profession doing face-to-face seminars, you just can't beat that," Heard says. "If you're an accountant or compliance manager, then perhaps the online tick-a-box approach may work, but the detailed knowledge you need as a lawyer you can't always get online."

Heard is also adamant that the length of CLE seminars must reflect exactly how much information needs to be conveyed. As such, Legalwise usually runs half day seminars. "Sure, if there are 15 or so key issues then we may go with a one day event," she says, also noting that Legalwise has even done ten-day events in Antarctica given the depth of information that could be conveyed. "But as we know, lawyers are time starved; if one of those topics isn't relevant to them then it puts them off the whole event."

But it's not only the web that is changing the learning and development game. A new model of professional education has recently cropped up to assist lawyers with their learning needs while also contributing to a secondary cause along the way.

One such model comes from Salvos Legal, the legal arm of the Salvation Army which has started running day-long conferences free to lawyers via requests for donations.

According to Luke Geary, general counsel of Salvos Legal, the idea sprang from his own experiences working in private practice and the difficulties he faced in sourcing specific services and advice for clients - such as drug and alcohol recovery services, financial counselling, psychological and employment services.

He says that through working with Salvos Legal, he now knows exactly who to approach for additional client services because he can draw on the rich knowledge base of the Salvation Army.

"I thought there have got to be a lot of other lawyers out there in the same position, so why don't I have a day where they can get some CLE points. They can help raise some money for us, and they can have access to the information about how to tap into all those services for their own clients."

Salvos Legal ran the second of its conferences on 5 March 2011, featuring high-calibre speakers including Judge Richard Cogswell SC and Judge Andrew Colefax SC.

"An important part [in attracting interest] is getting the highest calibre speakers that we can," says Geary. "We're in a unique position because we can attract them without having to pay them, because of who we are and being a not-for-profit event. So far, they have given their time generously."

The first Salvos Legal conference raised a little over $15,000 and attracted 275 registered delegates.

The ability to attend a not-for-profit event and hear from excellent speakers may only be part of the attraction for lawyers to attend something like the Salvos Legal conference. The other part is that lawyers can earn a good chunk of CLE points in one day and on the weekend.

"People love the opportunity to be able to get their CLE points on the weekend in jeans and a t-shirt rather than sitting in a suit in some stuffy room," says Geary. "They can also do it when the phone's not ringing and they're not missing out on emails or deadlines or clients. For those people, being able to do it all in one hit is the most efficient way."

These days, it seems offering variety to lawyers is essential if CLE providers are to stay relevant. "Everyone has a different way of wanting to do their CLE," says Debchi. "Some people like to attend the seminars and network and meet people, and others just can't spare the time. They need to be in their office and need to be doing their work. If you've got something available that they can download at any time, they can fit it in when they can."

Making CLE fun

With CLE seminars and events often covering fairly dry areas of the law such as civil litigation and property law, the challenge for legal bodies is to develop courses that fulfil professional obligations but are interesting as well.

One of the most well received CLE events last year was a seminar held in October entitled; "Ethics and good faith in dispute resolution" hosted by the Law Society of New South Wales and Baker & McKenzie in Court Room One at the Federal Court. James O'Loghlin hosted the evening, and attendance counted towards 1.5 CLE units, for the mandatory unit on ethics and personal responsibility, Rule 42 1 6.1.

The austere surrounds of the Federal Court heard the "story of Suzie", which involved a sordid tale of drugs, booze, extortion, bad hair, asbestos and fire alarms.

The mock mediation session, that included Bakers partner Andrew Salgo, Bovis Lend Lease general counsel Rashda Rana and Justice Lindsay Foster, had to find a way to settle the complaint that Suzie's kindergarten teacher, Patricia, had been fired unfairly. Many ethical and legal dilemmas were played out, with the more than 100 lawyers in attendance enjoying the spectacle of hearing the merits or otherwise of whether it was ethical for a large corporation to offer hush money to avoid the adverse publicity that drawn out litigation can attract.

While the NSW Law Society only had CLE events to be held in March on its website at the time of publication, representatives from the Law Society told Lawyers Weekly that it was planning to host similar CLE seminars in 2011.