It’s been months since I wrote, and it would be easy to think I’ve forgotten about continuing legal education completely, but that would be wrong. I even spoke on it at the end of October for a Denver Bar Association’s pro bono week Ignite event.

In five [very brief] minutes, I outlined a more structured program for lawyers seeking CLE credits for pro bono work (something Colorado does allow).

My basic idea was that existing organizations (like bar associations) could support structured curricula taught by experienced lawyers to small groups of less experienced lawyers working pro bono cases. This way, experienced lawyers learn more than they would by just taking a pro bono case because they are teaching what they know (“learning by teaching”), and inexperienced lawyers learn more than they could on their own or in a traditional CLE classroom because they are learning from an experienced lawyer and then working cases with the support of that experience (“learning by doing”).

You can view my slides and the video below. I’d like to say I was in a secret competition to see who could say “uh” or “um” the most, but no. Apparently, that’s just my “speaking style” when I’m feeling rushed by a 5-minute clock.

Imagine a New Future for Pro Bono and CLE: Alli Gerkman from Colorado Bar Association on Vimeo.

When I renamed this blog, calling it “Beyond Credits,” I joked that I chose the title so if I ever got bored I could occasionally write on topics that went far beyond credits and CLE. Like hiking. Or traveling. Or campaign finance reform. But it’s hard to get bored writing about continuing legal education because so much is changing, from lawyers’ expectations to modes of delivery. If you’re willing to question everything you thought you knew about educating lawyers, it’s an exciting time to be in CLE.

I’ve worked in CLE for just over five years. I’ve planned more programs than I can count and this last year I had the privilege of launching CBA-CLE Legal Connection, which won the 2011 ACLEA Award of Professional Excellence in Technology. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience.

But I’m now moving beyond credits. I’ve accepted a position at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), a national organization that happens to be housed right here in Denver and focuses on issues that matter to the future of the legal system, including these and the soon-to-be-launched Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers project.

While I am overwhelmed by the opportunity to work with the dedicated team at IAALS, I will certainly miss CLE shenanigans with all of you. I’ve learned so much from so many of you, online and off. I’m thinking a lot about how to transition this blog in a way that respects my own transition, but don’t expect a full-scale overhaul. And don’t expect me to keep my comments out of your CLE conversations online, either. I’ll still be around.

Be sure to stay in touch. I can’t wait to see what you do next!

The very first continuing legal education course I ever took was right here in the office where I now work. It was a class required of all incoming lawyers. In fact, it’s still a class required of all incoming lawyers. And it was pretty good. In addition to teaching me some of the ethical obstacles I was sure to face in my early years of practice, it also taught me what CLE was, which was something I didn’t think about much [at all] during  school. CLE was pretty much like law school–you went to a classroom, listened to someone who knew more than you about a given topic, and got credit for doing so. Easy enough.

But that was a long time ago, at least in years measured by a new era of information, and I didn’t have it quite right. CLE is about professional development and that doesn’t stop and start with an event–live or online. And it’s certainly not defined by the credits you submit to a regulatory authority at the end of the year. It’s an ongoing learning process that comes in many forms.

Which is why my organization launched this free site just over a year ago. Through it, we’re sharing all the information we learn in the course of doing what we already do: planning programs, publishing books, and looking out for the professional development of Colorado lawyers. When State Judicial releases new forms, we’re posting about it. If the Supreme Court updates the rules of professional conduct, we’re on top of it. And if a lawyer blogs on an important topic, we’re working with them to highlight that, as well.

As a nonprofit organization devoted to educating Colorado’s lawyers, we think this is simply another step toward fulfilling our mission. Our obligation doesn’t begin when our students walk into a classroom and end when they leave. It’s bigger than that.

Sometimes we’re linking back to a relevant product we sell, but often we’re not. More and more, we’re finding the site to be a tool that is helping us target the the most relevant topics for product development. For example, this issue we posted on turned out to be a topic big enough for a CLE program. So just as we’re feeding the site, it’s feeding us.

And as our traffic and subscriptions subscriptions have grown, I’m feeling more and more optimistic that we’re feeding the practices of Colorado lawyers, as well.

I’m on the planning committee for ACLEA’s 48th Mid-Year Meeting, which will be in New Orleans, January 28-31, 2012. While it still seems so very far away, planning begins now. Our committee is meeting April 1-2 to work on programming and I want us to have a great starting point, so I’m asking you:

What should continuing legal education organizations be learning, discussing, and implementing to best educate lawyers?

Please leave your ideas in the comments (or feel free to email me, if you prefer)!

A good conference has high quality presenters teaching on topics that matter. But a great conference brings all the right people to the same place at the same time. This is why we often see attendees who are slow to head back into the conference room after a break. They’re in conversations that matter with people they wouldn’t have seen but for the conference. And while the classes might be great and, yes, they get CLE credit for attending them, this conversation is why they came–whether they knew it at the time they registered or not.

Seth Godin took this idea further last week in his post on SXSW:

Think back a year ago to the last time you went. What do you remember?

Do you remember the presentations that were later on videotape? Do you remember the special screenings of movies? Do you remember the crowded cocktail parties? Bumping into a net celebrity? I don’t.

So I don’t do them. At the last TED, I didn’t attend a single session. They’re fabulous, but I can always watch them later, on video. [emphasis added]

This is all great for a massive conference, like SXSW, but if our attendees stop going to classes because they can watch them online later (and ours actually can because our tuition includes later access to the digital recordings), then we’re going to have some empty classes and disheartened faculty.

So we probably don’t want our attendees to take this approach, but I don’t think his point is wrong. It’s engaging in an in-depth way with the right people that makes carving time out of your busy schedule to attend a conference worth it. And while this tells Seth he should simply ignore the programs at the conference, it tells me that conference organizers should be thinking about how to redesign their conferences to facilitate those conversations during the conference. This might mean you don’t try top cram 15 credits into a two-day conference. Or it might mean you include sessions that are too fluid and user-generated to qualify for CLE credit. Or, for topics that require a detailed approach, maybe you have attendees watch the lecture before the conference and provide a forum for discussion and interactivity at the conference.

Or maybe you do something else. What do you think?

Not long after I wrote the post declaring that the future of online CLE is free, I headed to San Francsico for a meeting of the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA).

Pro tip: if you want to find out who in your industry is reading your blog, write a controversial post just before heading to an industry meeting. I was humbled to meet readers, many of whom approached me specifically to talk about the post. In fact, I’ve been joking with colleagues that I haven’t updated my blog because I’m a little intimidated by the caliber of the readers I didn’t even know I had until the meeting.

Talking about the post was helpful because it revealed some things I clearly had been unclear about in the post. For example, when I said, “online CLE,” I meant “video archives.” I didn’t mean webcasts, which still hold some potential. I didn’t mean carefully-constructed e-learning and gaming environments (if you take CLE and don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s probably because these environments are not used by many CLE providers). And I certainly didn’t mean to limit the potential of the hybrid event.

But the future of online archived video as free? I’m sticking to that.

Interestingly, online CLE provider Lawline.com agrees with me. Sort of. Its CEO, David Schnurman, and I actually talked about this at the meeting and he didn’t specifically say he agreed or disagreed, but he did say they would soon be launching something that would interest me. They have and it did.

Today, Lawline announced learn.lawline.com, which provides free access to Lawline’s entire library of videos (otherwise known as online archives). They’ve broken each hour-long program into bite-sized pieces on narrow topics. If you want the full version with CLE credit, you pay. All the video clips can be shared and embedded, so obviously it could be a great marketing tool for them, but what caught my eye about the format was that it takes a certain amount of planning, forethought and restraint on the part of the provider and the presenter to end up with a video that can be easily broken up into shorter topics.

I like when a CLE program is given a high level of attention and I like when lawyers are able to access the information as they need it. I’m not as crazy about a model that sells credits, but I definitely give credit to Lawline for trying something completely different and I’ll be watching to see how it goes.

What do you think?

Correction: David from Lawline just let me know it’s only 1/3 of their catalog so far, but that they’re adding to it weekly.

If you believed everything you read, you might think the death of the live CLE program is imminent. Maybe you think it’s the fault of legacy organizations that are drowning in tradition. Maybe you think it’s a good thing because you’re an online provider and you think online CLE is the future and that you are poised to dominate.

Maybe I think you’re wrong. Or, at least, kind of wrong.

Now, anyone who reads this blog knows that I think live CLE needs to do better. And by the way, my job title actually has the words “online content” in it and my organization produces tons of it, so it’s not a stretch to call me an advocate for online education.

But I’m also not blind. And you know what I’ve been noticing over the last couple of years?

• Videos on Ted.com. High quality ones by some impressive speakers. On topics I can search easily or stumble upon by happy coincidence.
• Classes on iTunes University. Sometimes even a full semester of a class, complete with a syllabus to work from. From schools like Stanford, Harvard and Yale.
• And when someone I know recently needed a refresher in math and physics I referred him to Khan Academy.

There’s no shortage of online education, but what do these examples all have in common? They’re all free. Internet connection aside, you don’t have to pay a penny to watch them.

The biggest trend in high quality online education seems to be its price–or, rather, its lack of one.

If big players are making education freely accessible by anyone who can access the internet, where does that leave those of us still charging for online CLE? What if lawyers just created their own online CLE?

Good providers bring a lot to the table, but when it comes down to the educational value of the programming, we’re still only as good as the volunteer lawyers who speak for us. So, what if some of our best speakers took things online on their own? Not necessarily to compete with us–maybe they just enjoy it. Just like some lawyers enjoy blogging. They even do it for free. After all, it’s as easy to produce video today as it was to blog eight years ago. And it gets easier all the time.

Which means that online CLE will be abundant but there’s not necessarily the wide open market to charge for it that some predicted. So if your business model is to charge for online content (even if your plan was to out-cheap the next provider), you might want to redesign. There are ways for providers to build some value in curating and positioning the content. Attorneys don’t always have time to search for the information they need, so there’s opportunity if you can get the best piece in front of them when they don’t even know they’re looking for it, but that’s another post. There are also surely sponsorship opportunities, though they might have to be reworked, as well, as vendors find their own ways to access lawyers through online education.

But, in spite of the virtual pitchfork mobs that have been circling those of us who still do live programs, I can’t help but think this could be our time. Two of the examples above–Ted and universities using iTunesU–are, after all, live event producers. Those of us with the infrastructure and drive to create lasting learning experiences using a blend of online and offline tools are in a pretty good position to write a new chapter for continuing legal education. If we’re up to it.

I’ve been hearing that lawyers and legal organizations are noticing a trend.

“Young lawyers aren’t attending networking events.”

And I’ve heard many explanations for it. The most popular seem to be: “they prefer to network online,” and “they just don’t have the work ethic that baby boomers did.”

What I haven’t heard is, “Maybe we’re not offering the kind of networking events that young lawyers value.”

Lawyers, both young and old, have more networking options than ever before–whether through legal organizations or trade groups related to their practice areas or other groups entirely. Basic economic theory would dictate that, as competition grows, it’s going to take more to lure people to your events. Believe it or not, cold appetizers, cut-rate drinks, and dim lighting might not have the draw it once did.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a question in the legal group on a community for young professionals:

I keep hearing that young lawyers “don’t like to network in person” because they’re not showing up to events. I don’t buy into it, but I wanted to ask you guys: Why do you choose to show up (or not) for an event or conference, legal or otherwise?

One respondent said the magic words that those of us who still put on live events love to hear:

To meet people. In these days of social media, meeting face to face still is the best way to do business. It’s all about trust and that’s earned in person. Conferences that give you the opportunity to meet others and start a conversation are worth it for that alone.

Seriously. Love that guy. I should have him do a guest post on this blog.

But there were a couple more who had comments that revealed something of what traditional networking events might be missing: a purpose.

For example, this guy doesn’t sound like a lazy, directionless young lawyer who can’t be bothered to do a little networking:

Generally I stick to events that cater to business people because that’s my client base. And except for a handful of bar association gatherings, I avoid networking events that are attended by too many lawyers.

In fact, he kind of sounds like the type of lawyer who could be going places. Which means he’s also the type of lawyer you want to come to your events. But he’s not going to go unless he’s reasonably confident that he’s going to get something out of it.

Now, he’s talking about general networking events (and not networking that takes place at a conference), but there’s still a suggestion in there for CLE providers: actively market to non-lawyer professionals who might also benefit from the programs. You don’t have to dilute the program to include experienced non-lawyers and their presence adds perspective and opportunity for the lawyers in attendance.

Another respondent said something I’ve heard over and over again:

I’ve been to too many events at which only students and the unemployed show up. So what motivates me to go to a networking event these days? Knowing, for sure, that working professionals that might actually be able to hire me are attending. Otherwise, it’s largely a waste of my time, unless there is a speaker who is particularly interesting.

Sure, it’s important for young lawyers to network with their unemployed peers because several years down the road they’ll likely be their employed peers. But if they’re making decisions about how to best spend their time, a general event for young attorneys (or students) probably isn’t high on the list.

Events that group lawyers by age, rather than by practice area or interest, puzzle me. Age isn’t much of a unifying characteristic. But if everyone’s in the room because they share a common interest–say, business law–they have a foundation on which to build a productive relationship. And the opportunity to build a productive relationship is the reason to go.

Speaking of business law, the bar association in Colorado is trying something with its business law section. The section has a subsection for young lawyers. The young lawyers host their own business law events and are active in the section’s events, and they get an inside look at the business law section, access to its leaders, the opportunity to provide feedback and ideas on some of its biggest CLEs of the year, and they will likely be the people leading the section in the future. Not a bad way to get introduced to a practice area.

So where have all the young lawyers gone? Nowhere. Maybe they’re just waiting for us to host the type of networking event that matters to their careers.

Just over two years ago, I told Kevin O’Keefe that Twitter was changing the way I discovered content online. My morning news ritual had begun with an RSS reader everyday since 2004, but by 2008, Twitter was becoming the first site I checked. My reader was secondary.

So perhaps that’s why this recent post from Kevin, calling Twitter the “evolution of how you find information on the internet,” caught my attention. And perhaps it was especially of interest to me because it came at the end of a year when, dissatisfied by some of the information I was receiving on Twitter, I have been slowly building my RSS reader back into a news and information force to be reckoned with–and back into my first news source of the day. And it seems I’m not the only one.

*The title of this post isn’t serious. I don’t think Twitter is dead, nor would I likely even post about its death on this blog. But it represents the problem I have with the fact that more and more people are using Twitter as a primary news and information source. Because a title like “Twitter Is Dead” is the type of title that, if used by certain bloggers, will be retweeted over and over, often by people who never even read the post itself. It just sounds like something you might want to pass along. And why spend any time reading or thinking about the post when you can distill its meaning from just three words?

Now, I know journalists have been crafting alluring headlines since the beginning of journalism, but here’s the difference. Once upon a time, headlines were crafted in such a way as to inspire you to read the article. Now, headlines are being crafted in such a way as to inspire you to share the article and generate traffic–whether you read it or not.

But surely people read posts before they retweet them, right? Sure, sometimes. Especially if they’re short and broken down into bullet points. But how many times have you come across a link that has been retweeted by several people only to find that the link was broken–and had been ever since the original tweet?

In some circles on Twitter, it’s become more important to share news and information than it is to have actual knowledge of the news and information you’re sharing.

If you’re a content creator (including those of us, like CLE providers, who sell content) who really believes in creating something valuable, this lazy approach might concern you. And if you’re a content consumer, you might be getting worried about the shallow levels of news and knowledge some people around you deem sufficient to share. I was. Enough to take back some control of my news routine by bringing my RSS reader back to the center.

This is not to say Twitter can’t be used, as Kevin suggests, as a powerful way to discover information, but you really have to do some work to get it there. Find the people who actually seem to be reading the articles they pass along. Find the people who discover obscure writers with a unique voice or approach, rather than those who spend all day retweeting ubiquitous sources like Mashable and Seth Godin. Then add the new writers you discover to your RSS reader, where you can read the posts in full, so you don’t miss their next piece. And when another good post comes along, pass it along, even if the author knows more about her subject matter than she does about how to craft a “sticky” title.

That’s what I’m trying, anyway.

By the way, if you have any bloggers you think I need to be reading, be sure to let me know.