Amidst the debate over the California Judicial Council’s proposed adoption of a California Rule of Court mandating a minimum amount of legal education for judges and whether such a rule would be constitutional in the face of Article VI, section 15 of the California Constitution, one aspect of mandatory continuing legal education appears ignored. The Legislature and governor, while I was a member of the state Senate, enacted mandatory legal education for State Bar of California members. That effectively supplanted longstanding Continuing Education of the Bar programs which I recall enthusiastically since my beginning days of practice approximately 50 years ago.
Commencing in 1953, Continuing Education of the Bar, as part of UC-Berkeley’s University Extension, sponsored such programs and treatises as Medical Aspects of Personal Injury Litigation, Organizing and Advising Small Business Enterprises, Practical Aspects of Probating Estates, Family Law for California Lawyers, Legal Aspects of Real Estate Transactions, California Remedies for Unsecured Creditors and California Civil Procedure Before Trial.
