Excerpt from State Bar Journal story:
The State Bar will send audit letters to 5,500 attorneys on July 7 to ensure compliance with Minimum Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) requirements.
This is the fourth year that the State Bar has conducted audits that could potentially result in disciplinary action. It’s also the largest audit group to date. The sample represents about 8.5 percent of attorneys whose last names begin with the letters N through Z, whose MCLE compliance was due Feb. 1.
Attorneys will be asked to provide certificates of course completion or prove they are statutorily exempt by Aug. 21. The State Bar requires active attorneys to take 25 hours of continuing education courses every three years. Lawyers must keep documentation for at least a year after their compliance is due.
The audit will include lawyers who had to make up missing hours as a result of being audited in 2011. In addition, it will include a higher proportion of those with other risk factors for doing poorly on the audit, such as a history of administrative actions or late filing of MCLE compliance. The remaining 3,200 or so will be chosen at random from attorneys whose last names begin with the letters N through Z.