So for whatever reason, we’ve decided that the absolute golden amount of time for a presentation or seminar to run is… 1 hour.
I’m never sure why. In fact, an hour long seminar seems like a crippling way to learn anything of use.
Despite this, many jurisdictions and rule books insist on the minimum time commitment for something to “count” as CLE to be at least 30 minutes, and often up to an hour.
It’s like trying to shove 9 cheeseburgers into your mouth and then start chewing. Sure, you might be able to get it all in there, but at some point you’ll just spit them out again.
Why Is It So?
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the likely rationale behind this. It’s probably, in most cases, to ensure that the nature of the CLE is sufficiently robust and deep in terms of learning that it actually offers some real merit.
That way, reading the daily pearls of wisdom from the comic section of the newspaper is unlikely to count, and a 45 second chat with your managing partner about how you’re going can’t count towards your CLE.
At the very least ensuring a minimum time commitment to a CLE session can help to avoid concerns about shallow learning of no consequence.
The problem is, it also creates terrible learning outcomes.
An Hour is Too Long
As well as having delivered dozens of seminars and workshops, I’ve got more than 30 hours of online CLE available on this site, and I can say with absolute certainty that the best ones are those which are shorter.
Why?
It’s less to do with the time itself, and more to do with how most speakers approach their presentations. Here’s the mindset when you’re given a presentation topic to deliver inside an hour:
- OK I have an hour to work with
- what do I know about this topic that I should say in order to “do it justice”?
- right-o then, I’ve got 8 points I need to get across
- therefore I’ve got about 7 minutes per point, plus 4 minutes for questions
- [writes presentation accordingly].
Which leads me to ask you this question: name one CLE you’ve been to that you’ve taken ALL the points away and actually done something useful with them?
Can’t? Me neither.
Too Many Points Leads to No Action
Despite our constant desire to do more things in less time, we can only do one thing at a time.
One.
The problem, by and large, with CLE topics is that they are:
- too broad;
- too general; and
- impractical.
In a lifestyle of incremental learning and constant improvement, the absolute best way to consistently become a better lawyer is to do it a little at a time.
Pick one thing, then do that. Make a habit of it until it becomes second nature.
Then pick the next thing.
As soon as we try to take a huge pile of information and immediately digest, understand and implement it we’re going to fail simply because it’s too much to take in.
It’s like trying to shove 9 cheeseburgers into your mouth and then start chewing. Sure, you might be able to get it all in there, but at some point you’ll just spit them out again.
But We’re Stuck with It
OK, so most of us don’t have any choice and there’s a good chance we’re stuck with 1 hour CLEs for a while yet.
Here’s how I suggest you tackle your next hour long CLE:
At the end of the CLE, write down 1 thing. Just one, that will make the biggest difference to you, your clients or your practice.
Take that thing and turn it into a sequence of steps that you can actually execute until you’ve mastered the thing (whatever it might be).
Then do it.
It might seem wasteful to let all of that other great information fly past, but for the majority of us picking one thing is more likely to result in actual benefits.
Sounds easy, right? That’s because it is. Certainly easier than eating those cheeseburgers…
Happy Lawyering!