According to Mr. Gelber, lawyers are exempt until they begin to practice. Mr. Gelber also stated that though the quality of courses varies, the goal of CLE is to get attorneys, especially experienced ones, to realize that there are always new things to learn about the practice of law. Once they do, they will not see CLE as an obligation but an opportunity. Novice attorneys have mixed feelings. They say that certain classes are snoozers and that others are advertisements for the companies sponsoring them.
Classes can also be redundant if new attorneys learned about the issues they address in law school.
But, they say, many of the classes in legal research and specific practice areas are extremely useful. According to the CLE rules, a maximum of 16 credit hours of transitional CLE can be fulfilled between the date of graduation from law school and the date of admission to the New York Bar. These 16 hours can take care of credit for the first year. But excess hours performed before admission to the bar may not be carried over to apply towards the second-year CLE requirements. Also, according to Lydia Lai, counsel for the CLE Board, many newly admitted attorneys do not realize that they have to get 16 hours of CLE credit each year, mistakenly cramming all 32 hours into the second year.