Feb 1, 2010
MICPEL shutting its doors
Last Thursday, one of The Daily Record’s top stories was “Financial woes put an end to MICPEL.” MICPEL is the Maryland Institute for Continuing Professional Education of Lawyers, and was the largest provider of continuing legal education in Maryland for the past 34 years. The announcement came very shortly after MICPEL’s late-2009 attempts to raise $1 million through its Next Step Capital Campaign, with some stated goals including upgrades of technology and hiring a new executive director.
As this blog has previously noted, there is no requirement for mandatory continuing legal education in Maryland.
It is hard to believe that MICPEL is so strapped that it could not wait it out to see whether Maryland adopts mandatory CLE—the Professionalism Commission is working on proposed rules for consideration by the Court of Appeals. If they approve, the Court of Appeals would likely take this up this year, and mandatory CLE could become a reality as soon as next year. If that were to take place, MICPEL could see a huge upswing in their bottom line. MICPEL’s inability to weather the storm for one more year means that its situation must have been dire for some time.
I do feel bad for MICPEL. I’ve never attended any of their programs because all of my CLE is taken care of through the plaintiffs’ bar, the Maryland Association for Justice (an informal survey among lawyers I know indicates that the programs varied in quality, but I’m sure that’s true of any CLE provider), but I do have a number of their publications, which are extremely useful. A quick survey of their publications shows that many are undoubtedly useful for new lawyers just starting out.
- Anatomy of a Trial: A Primer for Young Lawyers
- Maryland Pattern Jury Instructions (who doesn’t have a copy of this?)
- Pleading Causes of Action in Maryland
No word on when MICPEL will finally shut its doors, or who will be the beneficiaries of the remaining books and videos in their vault. I’m sure there is going to be one heck of a clearance sale.
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While most states have gone to mandatory CLE, surveys suggest that the amount of CLE hours per attorney in mandatory vs. non-mandatory states are not markedly different. 21 for mandatory states and 18 for non-mandatory states. Thus, attorneys seek CLE from providers based on need, not on mandates. I think what you see, however, are bar associations using CLE to drive revenues. Perhaps, that is the real reason behind the demise of MICPEL, competition. Bar associations provided CLE cheaper than MICPEL, law schools are getting into the CLE business and providing CLE cheaper than MICPEL could provide it. There seems to be little evidence that mandatory CLE enhances professionalism, but it does create a myriad of bureaucratic rules and requirements and imposes more cost on attorneys. IMLA has provided CLE since 1935. Our programs serve mandatory as well as non-mandatory states and are designed to provide local government lawyers with timely and topical CLE. We welcome members of the Maryland legal profession to join us.
They just had a 50% off sale two weeks ago. I purchased a new copy of the civil and criminal pattern jury instructions for 50% off…guess I could have held out for a better deal..who knew.
Publications like the jury instructions require yearly updates and are used by the Courts, so I assume some other publisher will be purchasing the rights to publish the updates.