CLE – LAWYERS & LIQUOR

Constant Low Effort, Part 2: The Practical Problems with CLE Requirements

Welcome back to Lawyers & Liquor on this the first posting day of the year 2019. I, the Boozy Barrister, hope you all enjoyed your evening of watching the clock count down to midnight and your holiday spent in the office behind a locked door frantically catching up on all of the end of the month shit that you’re expected to do as a practitioner of law.

Last time we discussed CLE hours, and that kicked me off in a whole new thing we’ll continue today. Meanwhile, I finally verified that the CLE hours I gained over the past weekend by sitting in a crowded room and listening to people drone the fuck on and on about topics that were, at best, barely within the wheelhouse of the type of law I practiced.

And isn’t that just about the truth of the matter? I mean, the whole purpose behind the CLE program is to make sure the public received services from attorneys that have remained up to date on the practice of law and the requirements related thereto. You certainly don’t want some dipshit counselor who may or may not believe Reagan is still president citing case law that’s been overturned for two fucking decades, right? So, I mean, making attorneys scramble like chickens with their heads cut off every year to get those hours together, that’s a good thing, right? It keeps us honest.

First, never use the words “honest” and “attorney” together again, people will think there’s something wrong with you. Second, the mandatory CLE requirements are, in and of themselves, problematic even when looked at in the light of their alleged purpose of ensuring attorneys remain up to date on the law. And we’re gonna talk about some of those problems today.

Constant Low Effort, Part 1: CLE Requirements and You

Welcome to the jungle on another amazing Monday, in fact the final Monday and the last day period of the opening of the pits of Hell that has been the year 2018. Because, you know, amongst the continuing social and political divide, an economy and stock market that’s acting like an adrenaline-addicted bungie jumper, and the now regular unmasking of horrible people whose thin facades of respectability led us to respect, the year has actually passed us by. Here on Lawyers & Liquor the year has passed mostly in silence and delay as injuries, staffing issues, and a significant increase in the number of duties at my job have forced me to don the mantle of the Boozy Barrister less often and actually, you know, focus on the practice of law for the benefit of my clients. So, yeah, I mean, I guess I’m sorry for not being here more because I actually felt like eating during 2018.

But more than not updating the site, being busier than hell during this past year has made it damn near impossible to stay up to date throughout the year on one of the basic requirements for practicing law. You know all know I mean those goddamn courses required of pretty much all practitioners no matter where you may be within these wide and wild United States of America. Except, of course, Maryland, which apparently decided attorneys there need no mandated courses to remain up-to-date on the law which, fun fact, is the same reason lawyers in Maryland still wear wigs and address the court as “M’Lord” prior to going outside and giving a crisp red apple to the horses they ride to the courthouse. But for those you not initiated into the ranks of the practicing lawyer, be you the fetal law student of the lowly Muggle, or simply the Baby Lawyer who’s currently exempted from the annual requirements of your bar by virtue of your absolute worthlessness to the practice in general right now, you cannot possibly know the struggle of the Continuing Legal Education (“CLE”) requirements imposed on us real lawyers by pretty much every state bar an attorney is licensed to practice under. And, folks, those courses are a real pain in my large, flabby ass.

Four New Reasons I’m Not Bitter AT ALL: Clio Cloud Conference, 2018

You might remember around this time last year I talked a little bit about a conference full of lawyers in New Orleans, Louisiana who were gathering to trade practice tips and, I assume, laugh at all of us peons in the workaday world of shit law through their crystal glasses of champagne or whatever. You can read why I was totally not bitter at all about not going to New Orleans last year to rub elbows with the hobknobbery of the legal world here. Or you can just hang around on the site for about a minute or two because, once again, while the “who’s who” of the legal online world are gathered in the land of beignets and booze, I’m sitting at my desk drinking some horrible faux Dunkin Donuts bullshit and spending a morning being completely not bitter at all about not attending. Seriously you guys, not bitter AT ALL.

Motherfuckers.

So excuse me as I top off my cup of coffee that’s exactly as bitter as I am not, at this moment, being. Give me a moment to suck on some lemons, just to get the morning off to the right start. Take a second to breathe as I shove a chaw of unsweetened cocoa powder into my upper lip like the chewing tobacco of the totally and completely not bitter at all attorneys of the world. And let’s look at why it’s actually a good thing that I’m not attending the Clio Cloud Conference in New Orleans for the 2018 year yet fucking again.

NO BITTERNESS AT ALL FOLLOWS