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I was recently asked by the Chair of the Dispute Resolution Section of the New Jersey Bar Association section to comment on New Jersey’s Mandatory Continuing Legal Education program. Here goes….

From what I read, it seems a fait accompli that the Supreme Court of New Jersey will require more rigorous MCLE. In the absence of clear metrics defining the specific problems we are trying to address, what our goals in addressing them are, and how we might measure success and failure (and the cost of same), I suggest the Court refrain from significant changes. Let’s fix what’s broke, if anything, once we know what it is, and how we would know success if we were to achieve it. In my view, it would not reflect a failure on the part of the Committee if its recommendation, upon reflection, were to be to continue to study with a focused effort on the “what’s broke” question.

As a licensed attorney in this State for 22 years I have appreciated NJ’s decision to go a path different than many neighboring states as a breath of fresh air. It implied a grown-up trust in the Bar to do what’s required to deliver ethical high-quality service synonymous with New Jersey’s legal tradition. In the past, when consideration of more stringent CLE requirements has periodically come up, my experience, albeit anecdotal, was nearly universal that the lawyers I most respected for their energy, judgment, and ethical character felt that such requirements were, at best, unnecessary, and, at worst, ill-advised or absurd. I cannot think of an instance in which a practicing lawyer I respect greatly based on his or her work privately expressed enthusiasm for greater CLE requirements, and those people in general give freely of their time to legal reform and charitable causes.

I admit to being instinctively uncomfortable with schemes with obvious feel -good effect, but which, upon reflection, offer little in the way of measurements of results against which to perform a cost-benefit analysis and I tend to see this as one of those. I have never heard, for example, how the quality of lawyering anywhere has been shown to have demonstrably increased because of mandatory CLE. Do the malpractice carriers have statistically-sound data correlating claims with the rigor of their CLE programs? (more…)