State Bar plans tracking tool to assist lawyers with monitoring CLE hours

By Psyche Pascual
Staff Writer

Every year, a group of State Bar members has to record their MCLE hours using My State Bar Profile online. To help in this effort, the bar plans to roll out an online tool that will help members track their CLE hours.

Although the new CLE Tracking Tool hasn’t been launched yet, members can plan on using it in the first quarter of 2013.

The tool is not intended to replace the current method of reporting MCLE hours to the State Bar. Members still have to report their hours using the online form on their My State Bar Profile account on the State Bar website. It also doesn’t keep track of CLE programs taken with providers other than the State Bar.

Don’t expect to throw away the paper certificates proving you attended a program either. If attorneys are audited, they will need the certificates to use as proof they attended the courses they reported. But the tracking tool does create an electronic history going back four years so that makes it easier to keep track of the data.

“This will at least give them basic information so that they will know what classes they have taken during their compliance period,” said Pam Wilson, interim senior director of education for the State Bar. “Even if they are audited, it’s still going to be a valuable tool.”

To use the tool, members need to enter a bar number to get their CLE Summary Log. Information will appear in a chart listing the program attended by name, course title, date taken, source (online or in person), type (participatory or self-study) and type of credits: general, bias, ethics or substance abuse. Members can copy or download the file as a spreadsheet (CSV or Excel) or in a PDF format.

Next year the State Bar plans to roll out a feature that will allow attorneys to track classes they take from other CLE providers.