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Saskatchewan Introduces Mandatory Continuing Ed
The Lawyer’s Weekly reports that the law society of Saskatchewan has introduced mandatory professional development for all lawyers in the province to begin in 2010. Apparently, in the current set-up, where attendance at annual conferences would keep liability insurance at a lower level, a lot of lawyers were prepared to pay the “fine” of higher insurance fees that truancy cost them. The explanation put forward is that they didn’t want to lose a day’s pay to attend.
One wonders whether (cough, cough…) modern legal research will be on the required curriculum.
The profession’s longstanding resistance to making continuing professional development mandatory is a major point against lawyer self-regulation. Allowing ourselves to opt into or out of the responsibility to stay fully informed on the content of the law and best practices of legal services delivery suits our convenience just fine, but does nothing for the interests of clients or community. The old arguments against MCPD — it’s too hard to offer outside urban areas, lawyers won’t learn if they’re forced, etc. — are excuses, and they’re weak: if we really believed in our responsibility to be at our best for our clients’ sake, we’d have started working on solutions a long time ago. Good for Saskatchewan and BC for belatedly making the right choice.
Must be that high cost of living in Saskatchewan…