Continuing professional development

The case, par excellence of the box-ticking culture than modern risk management has become.

Once upon a time, somewhere, someone in a self-regulating professional trade body conceived the worry that by the daily practice of one’s professional calling in a live environment, an attorney might grow stale, out of touch and dangerously unlearned in the ways of her calling. A counter-intuitive idea, but there you have it: it is a good thing for people to challenge orthodoxy.

So was born “continuing professional development”, a stipulation whereby solicitors must periodically re-educate themselves on germane issues. It is not greatly onerous — a few hours, spread over a year, is all you need — though across an entire profession that is no small demand on total capability. Law firms beheld a great marketing opportunity: a jaunty breakfast seminar for their in-house clients, followed by networking: a chance to renew acquaintances over a salmon bagel.

Make no mistake: free bacon sandwiches are great. Most jobbing solicitors need no more incentive to show up than that. If the room is large and dark enough there is scope for a few winks. (Freshfields London has an excellently dingy auditorium, by the way, with premium snooze opportunities at the back). In brighter forums, it is a chance to catch up on Twitter, LinkedIn or follow the cricket.

In all other ways it is a total waste of time.

Of course, there is no practical way to ensure a CPD hour is well spent. Who can say if such an hour is vocational, useful, relevant or whether, having signed the register, young sir spent any part of that hour present, let alone paying attention? The Americans had a crack at this by interposing a random number, to be read out at a random moment, which all candidates needed to quote in their compliance attestation to prove these elements. But even then only one brave attorney need sit through the morass for the greater good of the whole.

Let’s pretend for a moment you do show up, and pay attention, to a topical talk for your CPD points. Will it make a difference? Will that be the thing that staves off a bout of professional negligence? No-one who has spent an hour before a wizened solicitor mumbling through a dense PowerPoint deck about the transaction reporting regime under MiFID 2 could believe that.

But hurry along - the blueberry and bran muffins are going fast.