1. Honour system
1.1 Barristers are required to keep their own record of CPD activity. Barristers will be required to affirm compliance with CPD when applying to renew their practising certificate.
1.2 There is no prescribed form for the record.
2. Points required
2.1 Barristers are required to accrue ten points each CPD year.
2.2 Points are accrued on the basis of one point per hour. (See 13.3)
3. Points period
3.1 The period for accumulating CPD points commences on 1 April each year and ends on 31 March the following year.
4. The Legal Profession Regulation 2005 clause 176
4.1 The Legal Profession Regulation 2005 clause 176 refers to the special requirement regarding mandatory continuing legal education. The clause has been reproduced at the end of this document.
5. Exemption or reduction for CPD
5.1 Barristers who hold a practising certificate for less than 12 months duration have their formal points requirements proportionately reduced as follows.
This table applies to readers or for practising certificates issued to a lawyer returning to the Bar following a period of absence:
• August - 6 points are required
• September - 5 points are required
• October - 4 points are required
• November - 3 points are required
• December - 2 points are required
• January - 1 point is required
• February - 1 point is required
• March - 0 points are required
• April - 0 points are required
• May - 0 point are required
• June - 0 points are required
5.2 Where a practising certificate is issued during or after August it is not necessary that the required points be accumulated on the basis of a minimum of one in each of the four strands.
5.3 Barristers whose practice has been significantly disrupted due to ill health or other personal circumstances, including for parenting reasons, may apply to the Executive Director for exemption from or reduction in the CPD requirements.
5.4 Barristers who seek a reduction or exemption from the CPD requirements need to set out fully in their application to the Executive Director the reasons why it was not or will not be possible to meet the formal annual CPD requirements, bearing in mind the existence of CPD conferences, the intensive ‘refresher series’ conducted at the end of the CPD year and the various other ways points may be earned, including study groups using CPD video presentations.
5.5 Members of Parliament and certain statutory office holders are exempt from the CPD requirement.
5.6 Barristers normally resident in New South Wales whose practices will be primarily interstate for the bulk of the practice year are not exempt from the CPD requirements. In these cases, the Director, Professional Development, may vary the requirement that a minimum of one point must be accumulated in each of the four strands.
6. Four strands
6.1 There are four strands for CPD activity:
• Ethics and Regulation of the Profession;
• Management;
• Substantive Law, Practice and Procedure, and Evidence;
• Advocacy, Mediation, and other Barristers’ Skills.
7. A minimum of one point is required in each strand
7.1 Each year barristers are required to accrue a minimum of one point in each of the four CPD strands.
8. Criteria for CPD activity
8.1 Any activity claimed for CPD must meet the criteria. The CPD criteria are that the activity must be:
• Of significant intellectual or practical content and must deal primarily with matters directly related to the practice of law;
• Conducted by persons who are qualified by practical or academic experience in the subject covered;
• Relevant to a practitioner’s immediate or long term needs in relation to the practitioner’s professional development as a barrister and practice of the law.
8.2 CPD activity may be: face-to-face activity, or individual professional development activity.
8.3 Examples include:
• Teaching;
• Training;
• Learning;
• Being a trainee;
• Chairing;
• Convening;
• Mentoring;
• Being mentored;
• Certain kinds of meeting activity;
• Research and writing;
• Law reporting.
8.4 Seminars and other learning activities provided by sections, committees and forums of the Bar Association are considered as part of the Bar Association’s CPD programme. They do not have to be accredited.
8.5 Groupings of barristers, e.g. Public Defenders, Crown Prosecutors, floors of chambers, Regional Bars, and other groupings of barristers may work in consultation with the Director, Professional Development, to provide their own CPD programmes. These programmes do not need to be accredited.
9. Face-to-face activity
9.1 Ten points may be attained in face-to-face activity. For example, a barrister may teach for ten hours in the Bar Association’s CPD programme, and thereby accumulate ten CPD points. A barrister may attend as a learner for ten hours in the Bar Association’s CPD programme, and thereby accumulate ten points.
9.2 A minimum of four points must be from face-to-face activity, i.e. face-to-face teaching or learning.
9.3 One point of face-to-face activity must be accumulated in each of the four strands.
9.4 Face-to-face activity may, for example, be as a teacher, a learner, or a chairperson.
9.5 A teacher may count research and preparation time. A maximum of three points only may be accumulated from any single one hour teaching session. [Two points for preparation and one point for delivery].
10. Programmes that can provide CPD points
10.1 CPD points may be accrued from seminars and programmes provided by the:
• The New South Wales Bar Association;
• Groupings and bodies of barristers for their members, eg, floors, chambers, Public Defenders, Crown Prosecutors, regional barristers, etc; study groups of barristers (minimum of 2 barristers);
• Sections, forums, and committees of the Bar Association;
• Accredited CPD providers, for example, the Law Society of NSW, the Law Council of Australia and accredited programmes provided by commercial and other providers;
11. Accreditation
11.1 In relation to conferences, seminars, workshops and other events for barristers, participating as learners, provided by the Bar Association (including Sections, committees and forums of the Bar Association) do not have to be accredited.
11.2 Those organised by groupings and bodies of barristers for their members, e.g. floors, chambers, the Public Defenders, the Crown Prosecutors, regional and ACT Bars, Parliamentary Counsel, etc do not have to be accredited.
11.3 Those organised by study groups of 2 or more barristers following the Protocol for Barristers Seeking to Conduct CPD Activity Within Groupings to Which They Belong do not have to be accredited. The Protocol can be found at the end of this document.
11.4 Those provided by commercial and all other institutional providers not falling within 11.1 – 11.3 must be accredited.
12. Teachers, instructors and chairpersons
12.1 Teaching may be in:
• CPD
• Continuing Legal Education (Law Society MCLE)
• Bar exams tutoring programme
• Bar Practice Course and associated readers’ educational and training activity
• Undergraduate and Postgraduate
• Public legal education
• Legal education for community groups
• Legal education in schools, e.g. teaching students debating skills
12.2 Teaching, taking into account the subject-matter, mode, and context, must meet the CPD criteria. One point per hour of teaching and preparation, up to a maximum of three hours for any single one hour teaching session, may be accumulated from this activity.
12.3 A barrister who conducts a CPD activity of longer than one hour’s duration may claim additional points for the preparation time associated with each hour of presentation. For example, a three hour workshop which took twenty hours to prepare would attract (1 + 2) plus (1 + 2) plus (1 + 2) = 9 points. A barrister can claim two points for preparation for each hour of delivery.
12.4 Barristers may only accumulate CPD points from learning in programmes provided by:
• The Bar Association and its sections, committees and forums, groupings of barristers as set out at 11 above; and
• Specifically accredited programmes, conferences and other events.
12.5 Barristers may nevertheless accumulate CPD points from teaching in non-accredited programmes, provided that the activity meets the CPD criteria; but a maximum of three points only may be accumulated for preparation and teaching in respect to any single one hour teaching session.
13. Individual Professional Development Activity (IPDA)
13.1 Such activity must meet the CPD criteria.
13.2 A maximum of six of the required ten points may be attributed to IPDA.
13.3 Examples of IPDA include:
• Legal research and writing for publication;
• Post graduate legal studies;
• Active engagement in on-line legal programmes;
• Training in a one-to-one situation in computer etc, online research etc, skills;
• Engagement, whether as a convenor, a mentor, or a barrister being mentored, in a Bar Council approved mentoring scheme;
• Marking Bar Exams (maximum of two points per exam, up to a maximum of six points p.a.);
• Preparing, editing, revising etc., papers, reading guides, materials, mock trials, mooting problems, model answers etc., for the Bar Exams, Bar Practice Course, or CPD programme;
• Preparing curricula, reading guides, teaching materials etc for strands of CPD.
• Watching a video/DVD or listening to an audio tape, podcast or similar that meets the CPD criteria. Note: this accrues 0.5 CPD points per hour
13.4 IPDA is strandless, i.e. it does not count in any of the four CPD strands but may count towards the required points total. Face-to-face activity needs to be in strands, with a minimum of one hour of such face-to-face activity required in each of the four strands. For example, a barrister undertaking post graduate research may have devoted twenty hours over the practice year to such research. The research may have been towards a thesis on an aspect of administrative law. Six of these twenty hours could be counted as IPDA, towards the ten point total requirement. The six points would not be allocated to a strand. They could count as IPDA. This barrister must still participate in at least four face-to-face hours, with a minimum of one in each of the four strands.
13.5 Computer training sessions run by trainers working with small or large groups count in the Management Strand.
14. Bar Practice Course (BPC)
14.1 Instructors, lecturers and other presenters in the Bar Practice Course may count each teaching hour, and the maximum of two hours preparation for each such teaching hour. For example, participation in a three hour mock trial, preceded by ten hours preparation for the trial, would produce (1 + 2) plus (1 + 2) plus (1 + 2) = 9 points. Each hour devoted to the Bar Practice Course may be allocated to any of the four strands at the discretion of the barrister. Therefore, the barrister who accumulated nine points in the above example may allocate them over the four strands.
14.2 Barristers who devote time to the preparation of mock trials, reading guides, papers and other materials for use in the Bar Practice Course may claim such time as Individual Professional Development Activity, on the basis of one point per hour, up to a maximum of six points.
15. Meetings
15.1 Certain meetings which meet the CPD criteria are regarded as IPDA.
15.2 Where meeting activity is focused on substantive issues in the law or practice of law, or the development of the curriculum and/or courses for undergraduate, post-graduate, CPD, Bar Practice Course and other legal education, professional legal training, or professional development programmes, then the participant may count the time spent in discussions, or the preparation of materials for such discussions, or by way of outcome or follow-up to such discussions, as individual professional development activity, and may accumulate points up to a maximum of 6 in the practice year.
15.3 Examples:
• Meetings of a Bar Association working party on a substantive issue of law or law reform;
• Meetings of a section of the Law Council of Australia on a submission relating to an issue of law or law reform;
• Curriculum development meetings for CPD convened by the Director, Professional Development;
• Curriculum meetings of floors or chambers for development of their CPD curricula.
15.4 Floor/chambers management meetings where general principles, or the regulatory background relating to management (for example, regulations relating to affirmative action, equal opportunity, and protection from discrimination) are on the agenda and are discussed, may count the time spent in such discussions on the basis of one point per hour, as IPDA.
15.5 One point per hour of meetings, up to a maximum of 6 for the practice year, may be counted as IPDA.
16. Management strand
16.1 Certain floor management meetings may count in the Management Strand (see 15.4).
16.2 Computer training (see 10.5).
16.3 A core curriculum for Management is maintained on the website.
16.4 Therapy, personal training, and life coaching, whether in one-to-one or group sessions, from psychiatrists, psychologists, other health and allied health professionals, personal trainers, life coaches, etc, does NOT count for CPD.
17. Accredited seminars, conferences and other events
17.1 Lists of accredited seminars, conferences, and other events and the number of CPD points attributed is maintained on the Bar Association web site, www.nswbar.asn.au.
18. Accredited Series
18.1 From time to time certain CPD providers may be approved as series providers. Their use of the Bar Association’s CPD logo verifies the approval but events in their annual programme must be specifically accredited in order for them to count for CPD purposes. A list of authorised providers, with cross-links to their websites together with their specifically accredited events, is available on the Bar Association’s website.
Legal Profession Regulation 2005
Clause 176
Mandatory continuing legal education—special requirement
(1) If the holder of a practising certificate is required to undertake continuing legal education, that continuing legal education must include a component relating to the management of the practice of law that deals predominantly with the following issues:
(a) the principles of equal employment opportunity,
(b) the law relating to discrimination and harassment,
(c) occupational health and safety law,
(d) employment law,
(e) the management of legal practice consistent with paragraphs (a)–(d).
(2) That component is to be undertaken at least once in every compliance period, or such shorter period as may be determined by the appropriate Council, and is to comprise at least one unit in the units of continuing legal education that the holder of the practising certificate is required to undertake.
(3) In this clause:
compliance period means:
(a) in relation to a person who is the holder of a practising certificate at 2 April 2004:
(i) the period starting on 2 April 2004 and ending on 31 March 2007, and
(ii) each further period of 3 years ending on the third anniversary of the expiration of the previous period, or
(b) in relation to a person who becomes the holder of a practising certificate after 2 April 2004:
(i) the period starting on the date the person becomes the holder of a practising certificate and ending on 31 March in the year that is 3 years after the start of the period, and
(ii) each further period of 3 years ending on the third anniversary of the expiration of the previous period.
continuing legal education means continuing legal education that the holder of a practising certificate is required to undertake under the conditions attached to the certificate.
Protocol for barristers seeking to conduct CPD activity within groupings to which they belong
1. Floors, chambers, regional Bars, bodies such as the Public Defenders, the Crown Prosecutors, and Parliamentary Counsel, and other groupings of barristers, including those based on a particular activity, for example, service in the Navy Reserve, may provide their own CPD programmes.
2. It is not necessary that such programmes be accredited.
3. Groupings of barristers intending to organise their own CPD may discuss with the Director, Professional Development, plans and strategies, and should provide an outline of what is planned. It is not necessary that full details of every seminar delivered in such a programme be provided to the Director, Professional Development.
4. As with all CPD activity, barristers engaged in such programmes must keep their own records of their CPD activity.
5. Details of how barristers responsible for planning, organisation and delivery of such programmes may accumulate CPD points in addition to those gained from attendance, are contained in Information on CPD.
6. Groups of barristers, with a minimum of two in number, may organise their own study groups for CPD purposes.
7. Bar Association videos, CPD papers, and other materials accessed via the website, or through borrowing from the Bar Association library, may provide the basis for discussion in these study groups.
8. It may well be that such study groups are organised on behalf of groups of barristers by their clerk. The CPD programme and other materials published on the website will be useful in this context.
9. Bar Association videos or other Association material need not be used. In order for small group study to count for CPD, the group could study a written statement of a current issue which one of them has brought into effect, a recent article, a recent judgment, or some other significant material.
10. The material to be studied may be viewed, listened to, read or otherwise considered outside the study group period.
11. There must be some formality, a list of issues, a plan, some discussion points, or some other structure. The CPD criteria set out in Information on CPD apply.
12. Where small groups of barristers wish to address their CPD requirements through the medium of a study group, it is not necessary that they notify the Director, Professional Development, of their planned arrangements, and/or of the outcome of their plans.
13. Such small group study sessions do not have to be accredited. However, they must follow the protocol, as set out herein, and participating barristers must keep individual notes of their contribution and participation.
15 June 2006