NCAJ Supports State Bar’s Evaluation Of a Diversity & Inclusion CLE Requirement

NCAJ President David Henson has sent a letter to the chair of the N.C. State Bar’s Continuing Legal Education Board, George L. Jenkins Jr., providing notice of NCAJ’s support of the board’s effort to evaluate the inclusion of diversity and inclusion training as part of the annual continuing legal education requirement. Read the letter here.

At its Aug. 4 meeting, the State Bar Board of Continuing Legal Education’s Subcommittee on Bias and Diversity met to discuss potential changes to the annual MCLE requirements to include an hour covering topics related to bias and diversity. The subcommittee looked at requirements of other states and will begin drafting language for a potential rule change. The subcommittee will meet again in late August to finalize language and discuss procedural aspects of the rule with the goal to present their recommendation to the full CLE Board at the end of September 2020. If approved, the recommendation will go to the State Bar Council for consideration. The earliest implementation date for the rule change is January 1, 2022.  

This issue was raised at the inaugural NCAJ Diversity & Inclusion Conference last fall. NCAJ is forming an internal working group, led by Stewart Poisson as the Diversity Officer and Sonya Pfeiffer as the Legal Affairs VP, to explore the issue of the diversity and inclusion CLE requirement and the issue of adding anti-discrimination language to the State Bar’s Rules of Professional Responsibility, as described in an earlier blog post.

Please email Executive Director Kim Crouch by Wednesday, Aug. 12 if you are interested in serving on the internal working group or would like to suggest a member to serve.