Continuing Legal Education
You may recall that, because my firm requires everyone to, I took the bar exam in two states. One of them (hereinafter, “Happy State”) doesn’t require new attorneys to complete CLE for between 18 and 24 months. So I’m good until August of 2009. The other one (hereinafter, “Evil State”) requires all new lawyers to complete a basic set of skills and methods classes.
Basically, I’m in favor of “Bridge the Gap” programs that help new attorneys make the transition from the law school to practice. I really am. Evil State’s program, however, requires me to spend five Saturdays in an overcrowded hotel ballroom listening to lectures on areas of the law I’ll never practice. And then I have to do homework, to boot.
This past weekend, for example, we spent six hours talking about family law. And now I have to draft a complaint and a motion for relief. The odds that I will ever find myself filing a divorce complaint in Evil State court are vanishingly small. I can only think of two married friends who are residents of Evil State and they’re both lawyers, so they’re not going to ask me to represent them. Since I don’t plan on holding myself out as an Evil State matrimonial lawyer, I can’t see where the clients are going to come from.* But I’ll be prepared.
* Indeed this posting would be, if I actually identified “Evil State” or myself by name, my most likely source of matrimonial clients.
