It’s not every day that Continuing Legal Education, CLE, makes the news.  So when it does, it makes sense to write about it.  By now, many of you probably heard the story about a prominent Minnesota prosecutor who was found in violation of the state’s CLE requirements over a 20 year span.  The penalty: $900 and a two year probation.

Now, I can understand an attorney might not like taking CLE courses, or might not see the value in some of the CLE programs that are out there.  However, this is a blatant disregard for the rules and should have been met with a heftier punishment.  The $900 fine amounts to only $45 for each year of non-compliance, a value far lower than the average attorney spends on CLE each year.

I think the real issue here is not necessarily the CLE, although that is what drives the problem, but the fact that the attorney was practicing when he should not have been.  Perhaps his ability and skill as a lawyer was not affected by a lack of CLE compliance, but the point is that an attorney has an ethical responsibility to his clients to comply with all rules and regulations.  And if that is too difficult, or too much of a hassle, something is wrong.