 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 
|
|
 |
||||||||||||||||
|
Bar News - August 13, 2010 NHMCLE News: NHMCLE Board Reviews Compliance Period 2008-2009 By: Lee Jones Overview This was the third year that lawyers subject to SC Rule 53 received color-coded CLE Certificates of Compliance, with the color specifying the response required by the October first deadline. Lawyers in compliance by June 30, the end of the compliance period, received white forms; those exempt from the requirement in this period received blue ones, with information about the process when their exemption expired; and pink Certificates were sent to lawyers not in compliance by June 30. Only the recipients of pink forms were required to sign and return their Certificates with new course attendance records to show their CLE compliance. The other two groups of lawyers were asked only to review their CLE attendance reports for accuracy and contact the NHMCLE Office for corrections by October 1. Copies of the various forms and the explanatory information all lawyers received are in Appendix A. For their first compliance report in 1993, all active lawyers, regardless of their CLE compliance status, had to list their courses, compute their credits, and sign and return a Certificate of Compliance on the blank form supplied to them. Many lawyers who had completed their credits were penalized simply because they did not submit their Certificates before the filing deadline. The purpose behind the new method was to target lawyers not in compliance at the end of the compliance period, eliminating late fines for those lawyers who had completed their credits before the deadline but who filed late. Since late filing fees have become the largest single source of NHMCLE revenue, the Board expected that late filing fees would decline with the new system. However, as indicated in the budget information (Appendix D), late filing fees continued to climb. The NHMCLE web page on the NHBA website, contains all the information about the CLE requirement and includes application forms and directions for lawyers to locate and manage their online records. SC Rule 42 – Admission on Motion During this period, eighteen lawyers requested CLE credit certification for admission on motion. Ten requests came from Maine, and eight lawyers submitted requests from Vermont. The NHMCLE Office certified that these lawyers had completed at least 15 credits of CLE in New Hampshire practice prior to submission of their request for admission. Twelve lawyers made such requests in the previous year. Board Membership and Activities Charles S. Temple and Barry M. Scotch were appointed to the NHMCLE Board for additional terms to expire February 12, 2012. A full list of Board members and their term expiration dates is provided in Appendix B. Beginning in October 2008, the Board revised its meeting schedule from five meetings a year to two, in April and October, with an optional session in January. Two Board committees, Attorney Compliance and Sponsor Compliance, continue to meet once a month to review CLE applications from attorneys and sponsors, respectively, while the Audit and Regulations Committee meets on an as-needed basis. Regulations At its October 27, 2008 meeting, the Board voted to amend its Reg. 53.5 (A) (4) to assist CLE sponsors by clarifying what is required in written course materials. The text of the change and the complete regulations are in Appendix C. Audit Pursuant to Reg. 53.6 (B), the Board completed its annual random audit of lawyers' Certificates of Compliance, reviewing the Certificates of 43 lawyers. As in past years, some audited attorneys were required to revise their filings as a result of failure to review the reports sent to them. One lawyer lost a credit for an ethics course listed in his record because he had not in fact completed the course, leaving him short one credit for 2008. Since the error was not intentional, the Board ruled that the attorney should be allowed additional time to complete another credit, without penalty. Lawyers were reminded to review both their online records and the printed reports mailed to them in April and August. Financial Report For the 2009 fiscal year, lawyer late filing fees again far surpassed the amount collected in previous years, coming in almost $20,000 higher than expected. (Note that the program's fiscal year mirrors that of the NHBA, which provides administrative and support services to the program, and not the program reporting year of July 1st to June 30th.) This amount, in addition to much higher than expected Annual Sponsor course fees, inflated a small anticipated surplus to almost $71,000 for the year ending May 31, 2009. The $63,500 in late filing fees is the highest amount ever collected. Annual Sponsor course fees were higher than budgeted because sponsors are presenting more CLE programs by telephone and online webinars, in response to cuts in law firm travel budgets for live CLE programs. In terms of expenditures, unexpected savings were realized in the equipment and maintenance and program development areas, as well as personnel costs. Appendix D contains the audited financial statement and description for the NHMCLE program for the NHBA’s fiscal year ending May 31, 2009. Compliance Some lawyers are still adjusting to the new web site listings of their credits and the schedule of notifications from the NHMCLE Office. New lawyers admitted on motion from states such as Massachusetts, where there is no CLE requirement, typically comprise many of the lawyers who are late with CLE compliance. In addition to notices in NH Bar News and the weekly, emailed E-Bulletin, NHMCLE staff sends lawyers the Interim Report of CLE in April as a courtesy to remind them to check their online course listings and plan their compliance by the end of June. Lawyers no longer have to complete and return Certificates of Compliance. The current Certificates, showing the courses for which sponsors have reported attendance or that lawyers have submitted for credit, are now sent to them in August, separate from the June notice of NHBA dues. As previously noted, the color-coded reports (white-in compliance, blue-exempt, pink-noncompliant) provide a summary of their credits in ethics, general and live categories. They also indicate how many and what type of credits are needed to complete the requirements of SC Rule 53. The NHMCLE staff is targeting the newly admitted lawyers, to educate them about the annual CLE requirement. In the admission packet from the NHBA, each new attorney receives a short memo from the NHMCLE Board and an outline of the CLE requirement in a purple file folder titled CLE Attendance Records. The NHBA marketing team has created a cartoon character, CLEO, who appears regularly in NH Bar News with information about compliance. CLEO is also featured in an illustrated explanation of the course approval process. See Appendix E. The NHMCLE Board presumptively approved CLE courses offered by 86 organizations designated as Annual Sponsors. A list of these organizations is printed quarterly in NH Bar News, and is also available on the NHMCLE web page and reproduced in Appendix F. Lawyers may also review all approved courses through the web. In addition, the Board, through its Attorney Compliance and Sponsor Compliance Committees, reviewed and, where appropriate, approved additional courses on an individual basis. Lawyers submitted 911 programs for approval, while another 557 programs were submitted by CLE providers not participating in the Board’s Annual Sponsor program. Including courses from Annual Sponsors, the NHMCLE staff reviewed almost 6,000 courses during this compliance period.
See the table on the right for the compliance figures for the last 6 years. Future Compliance Initiatives Efforts will be made to revise the online compliance system in conjunction with the New Hampshire Bar Association, as it updates its software system to incorporate the MCLE online system. Plans include giving Bar members online access to all of their past CLE records, (and not just those for the current compliance period), as well as making it easier for lawyers to print copies of their own Certificates as needed. There will also be enhanced search capacity for lawyers to locate CLE courses relevant to their fields of practice. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Home | About the Bar | For Members | For the Public | Legal Links | Publications | Online Store New Hampshire Bar Association |
