Most legal practitioners in the United Kingdom (England & Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) require Continuing Professional Development or Continuing Competence Hours to maintain their professional designation. Browse courses that meet your requirements, or choose one of our course packages, specially curated to contain the hours and credits you need, in a single place. The courses on LearnFormula may be counted towards professionally relevant, verifiable, structured learning activities. It is the student's responsibility to validate whether an activity is an eligible educational activity for their professional development requirements based on their own learning needs.
Under the 'New Practitioner Programme' (NPP), you must complete at least 45 hours of CPD during the three-year period. This must include at least nine hours on advocacy and at least three hours on ethics (rQ132 and rQ137 of the BSB Handbook), starting on 1 January in the calendar year after you first started practising as a barrister (rQ130.1 of the BSB Handbook). This applies whether you are a member of chambers, an employed barrister, a ‘squatter’, or on a probationary period. Under the 'Established Practitioners Programme' (EPP), you must undertake CPD in each calendar year in which you hold a practising certificate once you have completed the NPP (rQ130.4 and rQ133 of the BSB Handbook). Except for the advocacy and ethics requirements of the NPP, the BSB does not prescribe specific CPD activities.
Based on the definition of “CPD” (rQ130.2 of the BSB Handbook), the following questions can help you identify whether an activity counts as CPD. If the answer to either question is ‘no’, then the activity doesn’t count as CPD.
(1) Is the activity undertaken over and above the normal commitments of your role? (2) Does the activity help you maintain and develop your skills, knowledge, and professional standards in areas relevant to your present or proposed area(s) of practice to keep you up to date and maintain the highest standards of professional practice?
Please refer to the following link for further information: https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/for-barristers/cpd.html
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UK Law CPD courses are built around relevant, verifiable content that can be applied toward BSB CPD hours. As with any provider, it remains the member's responsibility to confirm an activity fits their own professional development needs before claiming it.
