England 12/08/2013 – These days most UK professionals are required to complete continuing professional development training in order to remain accredited and practice legally.
The requirement is there to ensure that UK professionals, in particular those that give advice, stay abreast of changes to rules,regulations and standards within their industry. The amount of ongoing training each group of professionals is required to complete each year varies. For legal personnel who are governed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) the basic requirement is that they must complete a minimum of 16 hours CPD training each year. For new solicitors the training requirements are slightly different.
This requirement for CPD training has been in place for several years now and has been largely welcomed by those working in the field. However, some have struggled to meet the requirement simply because they lead such busy professional lives. Taking time out of their practice and going on courses to fulfil the CPD requirements has proved problematic for most.
As a result, many UK-based solicitors are doing their CPD online rather than booking themselves onto courses. Understandably, the ability to carry out all training online has proved extremely attractive to busy legal professionals. They are able to complete their training anywhere and at any time, which means that they are able to fit in more easily into their busy schedules.
Live training as well as static training
Firms like Datalaw have taken things a step further by providing live training sessions as well as static training videos. Their live training allows experts in the field to instruct and liaise with others. This approach has reaped many more benefits than anybody could have anticipated because it gives everyone in the field the chance to swap ideas and opinions and thus improve the way they practice. For those who set up the CPD scheme this is a great result, because the main aim of the scheme was to ensure that UK legal personnel were not practicing with an outdated understanding of the law. Modern, interactive CPD training is bringing benefits to the UK’s legal profession and ensuring those that work in the industry are aware of change and use it to benefit their clients.