For 2024, the Education Committee has directed that a minimum of 5 hours (20%) must be undertaken in-person, with your remaining 20 hours (80%) permitted to be undertaken online.
There is an exception to this ‘minimum of 5 hours in-person‘ rule:
- solicitors may claim a minimum of 5 hours eLearning per CPD cycle; accordingly, if a solicitor has a modified CPD requirement of, say, 6 hours CPD, for example, he/she may claim a maximum of 5 hours for time spent in relevant eLearning (as 5 hours is the minimum eLearning allowance).
eLearning is defined in the Regulations as “the provision of education or training (or both) that is generated, communicated, processed, sent, received, recorded, stored and/or displayed by electronic means or in electronic form, and includes education or training (or both) provided through:
(i) the internet or other computer network connections, sound only or sound and vision formats, or a combination thereof;
(ii) the provision of an electronic file, a CD-Rom and/or a DVD;
(iii) other technologies or formats”.
As with all CPD, the eLearning CPD must be in an objectively verifiable format (by way of a certificate of completion of the course / programme by the course / programme provider), and such verification of completion of eLearning in whatever format undertaken is the responsibility of the solicitor who is claiming the hours.
At your option (and subject to a maximum of twenty (20) online hours of the annual twenty five (25) hours requirement), you may do eLearning on an individual basis, i.e. not as part of a group/Group Study. In other words, there is no requirement for there to be a group of three of more people to fulfill this 20 hours optional eLearning element of the CPD Scheme for 2024.
You should note that a ‘live feed’ of a lecture/training session or the viewing of a pre-recorded lecture/training session (regardless of same being viewed in a group of 3 or more people) falls within the eLearning category (and may not be claimed as group study).
As with all CPD, the subject matter of the eLearning will determine its relevance and whether it constitutes General CPD, Professional Development & Solicitor Wellbeing CPD, or Client Care & Professional Standards CPD.