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Pandemic pushing greater emphasis on online learning
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced education providers to up the ante, with more legal professionals demanding greater flexibility around obtaining their CPD points this year.
Emma Musgrave
Speaking to Lawyers Weekly as part of our CPD Countdown Special, LawCPD lawyer and co-founder Sarah Mateljan said headwinds created off the back of pandemic have inspired the group to lead the charge when it comes to rolling out online content over the past 12 months.
“LawCPD has seen an increased number of lawyers switching to completing their CPD online in 2020, and expect this trend will continue in 2021. We have also received a greater volume of questions about how many points lawyers can claim completing different types of online CPD activities.
“In response, we have focused on developing free resources to share information with lawyers about how many points they can claim, and how changes to their local CPD rules during COVID-19 impact on their CPD obligations. We have been sharing these resources through our blog, emails and social media channels and have received a positive response from lawyers.
“As an online-first provider, we have always been ideally set up to support lawyers completing their CPD online. However, we have found we needed to scale up our support services significantly in the final weeks of March as it seems the pressures of the pandemic are pushing more lawyers to complete their CPD at the last minute.”
LawCPD has been in the Australian market for over a decade, remaining firm on its interactive online model. Today, it claims thousands of lawyers as among those reaping the benefits of offering what it dubs the “largest catalog of interactive online CPD in Australia”, providing users access to over 50 leading experts in law.
Further to this, the group has recently expanded its corporate offerings to help law firms manage their lawyers’ CPD compliance more easily. Firms of all sizes engage LawCPD to keep their lawyers’ CPD up to date through our interactive online courses and easy CPD tracking solution, Ms Mateljan explained.
“When we launched in 2008, the only available option for lawyers was to complete their CPD by attending face-to-face events like seminars and conferences,” she said.
“The first cohort of lawyers who chose to complete their CPD online with LawCPD were motivated to find an alternative to these in-person events – mainly due to their location or work situation. But as the years have progressed, we have found an increasing number of lawyers are now choosing to complete their CPD online because of the added flexibility it offers.
“We have also seen a significant increase in the number of CPD providers with online offerings – particularly in the past year due to the need to respond to COVID-19 restrictions. Most of these are live webinars which require lawyers to be in front of their computer for a particular period of time, or audiovisual recordings which lawyers can usually only claim limited CPD points for watching.
“We find lawyers continue to choose our courses because they are both interactive and available on-demand – which means lawyers can claim unlimited CPD points and complete the courses when and where it suits them.
“The feedback we receive from lawyers shows this is a key reason they come back year after year.”
Emma Musgrave
Emma Musgrave (née Ryan) is the managing editor, professional services at Momentum Media.
Emma has worked for Momentum Media since 2015, including five years spent as the editor of the company's legal brand - Lawyers Weekly. Throughout her time at Momentum, she has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest stories in corporate Australia. In addition, she has produced exclusive multimedia and event content related to the company's respective brands and audiences.
Prior to joining Momentum Media, Emma worked in breakfast radio, delivering news to the Central West region of NSW, before taking on a radio journalist role at Southern Cross Austereo, based in Townsville, North Queensland.
She holds a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) degree from Charles Sturt University.
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