CLE Leadership & Management
Ideas, Resources, and Techniques for CLE Professionals
A periodic e-newsletter

By Chuck Bingaman - chuck@chuckbingaman.com

#37 December 2008

Happy Holidays! I hope this December edition finds you and your family happy, healthy and looking forward to the New Year!

Special Announcement: CLE Leadership & Management is converting into a BLOG to present more timely and frequent CLE opinions, news and related resources AND to invite direct comments from CLE leaders. See www.CLELeader.com. And while you are on the site, don’t forget to register—for free—so you will get an email notice each time a new posting or comment appears. Only registered readers get email notices and are eligible to add their comments to any posting. Chuck Bingaman

Leadership North Carolina CLE Director Ray Ruppert reports that his assigning an assistant director whose principal job is the recruiting corporate sponsors and exhibitors for NCBAR courses has been a real financial success.    New York State Bar CLE Director Terry Brooks reports that his organization is offering complimentary programs on representing real estate mortgagees to lawyers willing to take such cases on a pro bono basis.   After 20 years at the helm, Jack Huberman has left as Executive Director of the CLE Society of British Columbia. BCCLE under Jack’s leadership has consistently been one of the leading innovators in CLE, especially in distance learning and related technologies. Longtime BC staff member Ron Friesen has been tapped as Acting Director. Longtime Pennsylvania Bar Institute Executive Director Roger Meilton has officially retired but he is staying on informally until the search committee names a successor. Roger has long been a model for many of us in terms of his professionalism, diplomacy and management of a large CLE organization in a very diverse jurisdiction.

Management Did you know that LERN, the world’s largest association of leaders in adult education, has had a “virtual office” for several years? That is, they closed their traditional office of bricks, mortar, walls, receptionists, and a lunchroom several years ago and operate as a network of people running a large, complex association from home offices and other sites around the country. Executive Director Bill Draves and his second in command, Julie Coates, are still in River Falls, Wisconsin, but the remainder of the staff, full- and part-timers, are in touch virtually, and they seem to be doing fine. Without the bricks, mortar, et cetera! Might be something to keep in mind in tough economic times!    Did you notice that CEB (California Continuing Education of the Bar) and IICLE (Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education) have launched upgraded web sites? See www.ceb.com and www.IICLE.com. And why aren’t more CLE sites “.edu’s”?

Resources WIKIs, specialized web sites that enable readers to edit some or all of their content, are rapidly growing in importance both for internal and external business and education communications. In fact, the Legal Education Society of Alberta, www.LESA.org, plans to publish a CLE handbook as a WIKI in 2009. It’s an area that CLE people must learn about. Two info sources are a commercial WIKI site provider, www.pbwiki.com, that has useful White Papers on its site (and links to commercial WIKIs) and “WIKIs for Dummies” by Dan Woods and Peter Thoeny.   Blogs, a better known social medium closely related to WIKIs, continue to expand in number and relevance to CLE. An impressive legal blog that may suggest ideas for CLE use in organizing and keeping a whole field updated is www.scotusblog.com. Note, too, that Scotusblog has recently launched a companion WIKI at www.scotuswiki.com .  For a continuing reference to legal blogs, check out legalblogwatch.typepad.com.   Finally, I suggest your exploring www.educause.edu! Educause is a not-for-profit dedicated to advancing higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. Its conference materials and its magazine, EQ Quarterly, are on the site and offer very stimulating ideas.

Consulting Ideas

Following 20 years as Executive Director of a major American CLE organization, I now consult on CLE strategic planning, marketing, and management challenges with CLE organizations, bar associations, and law firms. Among other CLE projects, I am currently serving as the reporter for the October 2009 CLE Summit being sponsored by ACLEA and ALI-ABA. I welcome your inquiries on projects designed to enhance your organization’s effectiveness. You can contact me at 603-756-9268, at chuck@chuckbingaman.com, or at P.O. Box 390, Walpole, NH, USA 03068-0390. Past issues of this newsletter are archived at www.chuckbingaman.com.