Vol. 75, No. 12, December 2002

Any Questions, Tampa?

by George C. Brown,
State Bar executive director

In October, the Non-Resident Lawyers Division (NRLD) board of directors held its annual fall meeting. Representing more than 6,000 nonresident lawyers across the United States is tough duty because of their diverse interests and needs.

The diaspora of Wisconsin law school graduates, while widespread, lends itself to congregations of Wisconsin trained and licensed lawyers in various cities throughout the states - Minneapolis-St. Paul, northern Illinois cities, especially in the Chicago area, the greater Washington, D.C. area, New York City, and cities in Florida and California. There are 16 cities or areas nationwide that host active chapters of Wisconsin lawyers.

One common challenge facing the nonresident lawyer is continuing legal education. Most can earn credits in their resident states that will receive Wisconsin credit. Therefore, the chief hurdle is earning ethics credits that apply in Wisconsin.

State Bar CLE is working to meet this need. Recently, lawyers from the NRLD's South Florida Chapter gathered in Tampa and lawyers from the Washington State Chapter gathered in Seattle to attend remote videos of a State Bar of Wisconsin CLE ethics seminar. They joined with the attendees at 10 remote video locations in Wisconsin in watching the half-day video replay of a recent live CLE ethics seminar and then joined with the Wisconsin resident lawyers in asking questions and having them answered during the live telephonic portion of the program. Because the State Bar received the credit approval from the Board of Bar Examiners before the program was held, nonresident lawyers did not have to worry about whether they would get Wisconsin ethics credit.

State Bar CLE also recently offered five live CLE ethics telephone seminars, each receiving one hour of CLE/EPR credit. While more expensive than a typical live seminar, largely due to the cost of paying a third-party provider to hook up hundreds of telephones for what amounts to one gigantic teleconference, telephonic seminars save time and money because participants can stay in their offices while earning CLE credits.

Telephone seminars are a great advantage for nonresident lawyers (whether they have been nonresident for years or are a nonresident lawyer only for the day) because they can be anywhere in the world and still attend. Members have, in fact, attended via international telephone calls.

These two formats are just some of the many new delivery methods that State Bar CLE is developing to provide members with valuable CLE programming, whether you live in Wisconsin, Tampa, Seattle, or even London.

Wisconsin Lawyer