CLE Rules and Regulations Announcements

Professional Responsibility Requirement – adopted April 15, 2021, effective July 1, 2021

On April 15, 2021, the Colorado Supreme Court adopted amendments to the rules and regulations governing continuing legal and judicial education in Colorado, effective July 1, 2021. Starting with attorneys with the three-year CLE compliance period that began January 1, 2021 and will end December 31, 2023, Colorado attorneys will need to complete at least two credit hours in equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) and at least five credit hours in legal ethics or legal professionalism. However, the total number of required CLE credit hours remains 45.

How will this be implemented? Our Office will begin accrediting programming, live and on-demand, for legal ethics, legal professionalism, and EDI immediately. The Office will also re-review courses previously submitted for 2021, upon request by providers, for this requirement. Our CLE database which tracks compliance and accreditation is being modified to handle the delineation of the new professional responsibility sub-categories, and we anticipate the programming will be completed by mid-2022. Currently our Office is able to track legal ethics through the database. Over the next 12 – 18 months, our Office will track EDI-approved programming through course titles.

What does this mean for you? When the CLE database has been enabled to track the new professional responsibility subcategories, our Office will review all courses approved for EDI credit and will search for all lawyers who have submitted attendance at an EDI-approved course or completed an EDI-approved course. Our Office will then enter the EDI credits to your transcript, and review the legal ethics/legal professionalism credits on your transcript to ensure all have transferred correctly. Please keep track of your CLE activities to ensure your transcript appropriately reflects your compliance before the close of your CLE compliance period. We will notify all attorneys once this database transition has taken place.

Click here for Rule Change 2021(5)

Click here for CLE Regulatory Changes adopted with Rule Change 2021(5)

Click here for a copy of the CLE Rules and Regulations

For information about CLE Compliance and CLE activities, please visit our updated FAQs here.

For Sponsor Accreditation information, please visit our FAQs here.

CLE Compliance via Comity

If you are an out-of-state attorney, licensed in Colorado, but living and working in another U.S. jurisdiction that has mandatory CLE, please see our FAQs on CLE Compliance via Comity and our new CLE Comity Compliance Form here.

Age Exemption from CLE Requirements – adopted March 15, 2018, effective July 1, 2018

On March 15, 2018 the Court amended the CLE Rules changing the age exemption from CLE requirements from age 65 to 72 for actively licensed lawyers and judges. Please note, this does not affect lawyers who are authorized to practice under the Pro Bono Counsel Certification rule, C.R.C.P. 204.6, who are exempt from mandatory CLE.

How will this be implemented? If on March 15, 2018 you were exempt from mandatory CLE based on your age and were not yet 72 years old, you will again become subject to the requirements and your compliance period begins this year (2018) and ends December 31, 2021. For those of you who will be turning 65 this year (2018) or in 2019 and have not yet become exempt, your compliance period will automatically be extended to December 31, 2021. Once you turn age 72, you will again become exempt from the CLE requirements.

What happens if you turn age 72 before December 31, 2021? You will become exempt during your first re-entry compliance period, and therefore it is up to you to what extent you wish to enter your CLE activities on your official transcript.

Additionally, pursuant to the new rule, even once you become exempt, you will continue to be able to enter your CLE activities on your official transcript. This will allow you to continue to track your CLE, even though not required, for your own use.

CLJE Rules: C.R.C.P. 260 replaced by C.R.C.P. 250 – adopted March 15, 2018, effective July 1, 2018

The Colorado Supreme Court adopted a new Rule Change on March 15, 2018 that affects Mandatory Continuing Legal and Judicial Education. Effective July 1, 2018, the rule on mandatory continuing legal education requirements under C.R.C.P. 260 et seq. was replaced by the new C.R.C.P. 250 et seq.

Click here for Rule Change 2018(4)