BarTalk December 1999
Volume 11, Number 6
As Chair of the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia (CLE), I thought it was time that I entered into the discussion that is occurring about the profession’s commitment to continuing legal education. This discussion has been precipitated by the columns in two recent publications of the Benchers’ Bulletin by Warren T. Wilson, QC, President of the Law Society of British Columbia.
As you may have guessed, I am definitely in favour of all members of our profession continuing their legal education beyond their years in law school. If we are to maintain the hallmarks that enable us to call ourselves professionals, then we must ensure that we are constantly learning, and expanding our knowledge, just as the legal world and the needs of society constantly change. Today we are called the information society. We as lawyers then are called upon to ensure that our knowledge of the law and its impact on all aspects of society remains at the leading edge of the surfeit of information that we find around us.
In the early 90s, many lawyers experienced a significant economic downturn. Notwithstanding subsequent growth in the profession, attendance at CLE courses has never recovered to pre-1990 levels. While we know that lawyers attend courses by other organizations, our numbers show that even taking these other providers into account does not bring us back to the pre-90s attendance levels.
We believe the most significant causes for the decline are the billing and time pressures that are so prevalent in the legal profession. As a result, we believe that continuing professional development has taken a much lower place on lawyers’ priority lists. By comparison, Chartered Accountants in public practice in BC, who also face considerable billing and time pressures, participate in professional development at greater rates than lawyers. As the education arm of the profession, CLE believes that lawyers must put continuing legal education back on their agendas, not just to meet professional responsibility requirements, but to remain competent and competitive.
Professionals in the US are putting continuing education on their agendas in a big way. Research shows that they participate in 37 hours of training per year and that the five-year trend for budgeted training has increased by 26 per cent since 1993 (Training, October 1998). In addition, Fortune magazine’s listing of “The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America” (January 11, 1999) found that extensive training and development is emerging as a retention strategy of choice among top companies. On average, the ‘100 Best’ provided 43 hours of training for each employee in 1998—an increase of more than a full day over the previous year.
In response to Mr. Wilson’s articles, many lawyers wrote to say that CLE is too expensive. CLE has been concerned about this issue as well. As a self-financing organization (one which must recover all of its expenses from sale of courses and books) and an organization that is mandated to provide legal education to all members in all areas of practice and all areas of the province, we must charge the fees that we are charging. In fact, our registration fees are considerably lower than almost all other legal education providers (except those who, in addition to the course fee, charge a membership fee).
This has not stopped the Law Society and CLE from pursuing the cost issue. And for fiscal year 2000, the Law Society and CLE have entered into an agreement by which every insured lawyer in the province will receive two $150 Vouchers toward the purchase of CLE Society of BC courses. Through this partnership, the Law Society will reimburse CLE for Vouchers submitted up to a financial cap. After that cap is reached, CLE will honour the Vouchers but will receive no reimbursement from the Law Society. Let me make it clear that CLE assumes a significant risk in this arrangement which is a partnership and not a gift. If CLE does profit from this partnership, the funds will be reinvested into improving the quality and accessibility of legal education for you.
What we are also pursuing is different ways to provide that legal education. Our many practice manuals and other publications have become primary reference sources for many lawyers throughout the province. We also have our early morning phone-in updates, whereby lawyers can participate in overviews of developments in the law from the convenience of their own telephones. And of course, we are responding to the increasing access to the internet that is occurring in our profession. Surveys show that over 80 per cent of the profession has access to the internet. CLE is responding by expanding its website, and the resources available to you from the touch of a keyboard. Check it out--cle.bc.ca--I am sure you will be impressed.
Education is important. The CLE Society of BC, the Law Society, and the profession must work together to ensure that every lawyer in this province recognizes that and does something about it. We want to encourage the legal profession to make a renewed commitment to professional development. Put CLE on your agenda.
Margaret Sasges
Chair, CLE Board of Directors
I was honored recently by a very interesting group of lawyers and have not had a proper chance to thank them. I hope you will publish this letter so that I can formally accept their praise and publicly thank them for the honor. At the time I was glad the room was big and noisy because this was a surprise and I was not prepared, but I do not want to let the opportunity pass. There have been two dinners organized by Carol Konkin and Lois Salmond to gather women who practise criminal law and with the considerable organizing details, we all appreciated the effort. The events have provided a chance for us to socialize and enjoy each other’s company. That is no small feat in the context of an adversarial system and current criminal law debates, and that is partly why the group is interesting. There is so much less acrimony between the two sides of any case in this province compared to anywhere else in Canada. There may be a number of reasons for that fact but in one conversation we concluded it was in large part because of the CBA criminal subsections and all the people who pitch in and work with the issues generated by those meetings. A toast to the BC Bar!
There were about 100 women at the dinner and that too is remarkable because any day-to-day experience would make you think there were far fewer in the same business. Maintaining any criminal practice requires considerable travel beyond 222 Main Street, so our numbers are scattered throughout the Lower Mainland. But even with so many female barristers in one place it was noticeable that there are shortages of women at either end of a continuum: fewer senior members and fewer articling students. That raises multiple concerns: there are some serious health problems, difficulties with competing childcare priorities, financial demands in the business of running an office and examples of burnout. Yet in spite of the problems there was an underlying theme that the work is important, meaningful and fulfilling. Given that response, the bigger worry with the shortages are the missed opportunities for training and mentoring. With shrinking resources fewer people can hire the students who want to be advocates. And those students exist - before this dinner I had spent the day listening to the Peter Burns criminal moot competition at UBC. I am pleased to be part of the group because they understand and talk about the needs of all of us to keep learning and sharing our experiences.
This group honored me specifically because I have been plucked from the trenches and placed on the bench. It has been a whole year since I first got the call from the Attorney General and it is still very much my honor to be in this position. I was thanked also for the apparent enjoyment I get from problem solving with colleagues, but unraveling tangles has always been of keen interest. I like knitting and have cats in my life too! And I was thanked and honored because I am perceived from different perspectives to be fair and reasonable, in the past in my submissions and now in my reasons. Not everyone may think so, immediately I can think of several examples, and I often struggle to control my opinions. However, as part of this profession, we all work hard to maintain our freedoms and develop the opportunities to openly and honestly respond and debate our differences. Consider our jurisprudence as one more example of our “peace-keeping” role, and we all have much of which to be proud.
I am sincerely pleased to have been honored by my colleagues and would like to thank them all for their gift and most importantly for helping me become the person they are willing to have making judgments and decisions. I promise to continue to work on my listening skills. That evening we celebrated many people and many achievements and I was very happy to be a part of it.
Judge Judith Gedye
Provincial Court of British Columbia
These letters were published in the December 1999 issue of BarTalk. |