Continuing professional development

The case, par excellence of the box-ticking, form-filling 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 that 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 requirement: some 17 hours, spread over a year, is all you need. Law firms of any size could organize breakfast seminars, inviting their own staff and inhouse counsel from their clients: a great marketing opportunity, and a chance to renew acquaintances over a salmon bagel.

The bacon sandwiches are great. If the room is large and dark (Freshfields London has an excellently stuffy auditorium by the way) there is scope for a catching a few winks. The remainder is a total waste of time.

Anyone who claims to enjoy hearing an aged solicitor mumble into his beard for an hour about MiFID 2 in front of a text-heavy PowerPoint presentation is such a liar as to call into question her fitness and properness to be a solicitor of the supreme court of England and Wales. Heaven forbid you should take anything on board.