Is there evidence that mandatory continuing legal education improves the legal system?
There is no real empirical evidence that MCLE is going to produce better attorneys. Some people say that those who probably truly need continuing legal education are the types who won’t benefit from this arrangement. You can’t force-feed education, especially since now people can sit in seminars and surf the web or just daydream. Q: There has been a lot of talk about whether attorneys should be allowed to self-report their credits, or if an agency should track them. What is the arguments for self-reporting? A: As officers of the court, we’re professionals and we’re going to educate ourselves. We should be able to say we’ve complied with the requirement, perhaps on the annual attorney registration application. We can keep records and so will the agencies that provide courses, so there will be ways to verify the accuracy of our reporting. It works in California and New York, and we think it can work here. Q: What are some of the other concerns about the reporting process? A: One major co
