CPD for solicitors: A complete guide to continuing professional development in the UK

What replaced the 16-hour requirement

Until 2016, solicitors had to complete 16 hours of accredited CPD each year, generally delivered by approved providers as external courses.

The SRA’s own assessment was that this imposed a blanket requirement unconnected to role or function, and that it often meant activity focused on accumulating hours rather than addressing relevant learning needs. The new approach became compulsory for all solicitors on 1 November 2016.

What replaced it places responsibility with the individual. Solicitors reflect on the standard of their work, identify learning and development needs, and take appropriate steps to address them. There is no hours target, and the SRA is explicit that meeting the requirement does not need to be separate from a solicitor’s core work: research and on-the-job learning count.

The annual declaration

This is the part most summaries of CPD omit, and it is the only point at which the regime is formally tested.

Every solicitor holding or intending to hold a practising certificate, and every registered European or Swiss lawyer, must make a declaration to the SRA as part of annual certificate renewal. The declaration has two limbs:

• That you have an up to date understanding of the legal, ethical and regulatory obligations relevant to your role
• That you have reflected on and addressed any identified learning and development needs

Both must be satisfied. The first is frequently overlooked because it is newer and less discussed than the reflection limb, and it is a statement about your current knowledge of your obligations rather than about learning activity undertaken.

Individual solicitors can make their own declaration, or firms completing the practising certificate renewal exercise in bulk can make it in the relevant section of the forms. Where a firm makes declarations on behalf of its solicitors, someone in that firm is making a statement about each of them.

The declaration is mandatory even if you have identified no learning needs in the year.

The Statement of Solicitor Competence

Reflection has to be against something, and this is the standard.

The SRA’s Competence Statement sets out what is expected of solicitors. It comprises the Statement of Solicitor Competence, which describes the competences themselves, the threshold standard, which describes the level at which they should be performed, and the Statement of Legal Knowledge.

Its practical use is as the reference point for the reflection exercise. Rather than asking in the abstract what you might usefully learn, the exercise is to work through the competences relevant to your role and identify where performance falls below the standard you would want. That produces learning needs that are specific enough to address.

The SRA publishes templates for recording learning and development activities and for reflecting, prioritising and evaluating needs. They are not compulsory, and they are more useful than a blank page.

Do you have to keep records?

This is commonly misstated, including in guidance that presents record-keeping as a regulatory requirement.

Keeping a record is not itself a regulatory requirement under the continuing competence approach. What the SRA says is that, while not required, you should consider how you can evidence that you are maintaining your competence, including how you identified your learning and development needs.

The distinction matters less in practice than it sounds, for one reason: the SRA states that it regularly asks solicitors to provide evidence. A solicitor who has reflected genuinely but recorded nothing is in a weak position when asked, and the cost of a short dated note after each significant piece of learning is close to zero.

The sensible position is therefore to keep records because they are useful rather than because they are mandatory, and to record the reflection as well as the activity. Evidence that you attended a webinar says less than evidence of what you concluded you needed and why.

What counts as learning

Anything that genuinely addresses an identified need. The SRA is deliberately broad, and the point of the 2016 reform was to stop activity being shaped by what a provider was accredited to deliver.

Recognised approaches include formal training courses, webinars and conferences; researching legislation, regulatory guidance and judicial decisions; peer discussion, supervision and mentoring; ethics, risk management and compliance training; on-the-job learning arising from the work itself; and developing knowledge of the systems and technology used in practice.

Writing and publishing legal analysis also qualifies where it involves genuine research and reflection, as do many other activities. It is one route among several rather than a uniquely effective one, and the test in every case is the same: did it address a need you had identified, and can you say what changed as a result.

Who the requirement applies to

Broader than many solicitors assume, and it does not depend on where you work.

It applies to anyone holding or intending to hold a practising certificate, and to registered European and Swiss lawyers, regardless of where in the world they are based. Solicitors practising overseas whose practice predominantly relates to England and Wales are covered by the Overseas and Cross-border Practice Rules.

Solicitors exempt from holding a practising certificate under section 88 of the Solicitors Act 1974 are in a different position, and anyone uncertain about their status should check the SRA’s current guidance rather than assume.

For registered foreign lawyers, the expectation is that failure to maintain competence is reported to the SRA.

Doing it properly

The regime rewards a small amount of structure, and punishes leaving it to renewal week.

• Reflect during the year, not at renewal. The declaration covers the practising year, and a reflection conducted in October about the previous twelve months is a reconstruction.
• Start from the Competence Statement. It converts a vague sense of gaps into specific needs.
• Cover the obligations limb deliberately. Changes to the Codes, the Accounts Rules, AML requirements and data protection all sit inside the first limb of the declaration.
• Record the reflection, not just the activity. What you identified and why is the more useful evidence.
• Balance technical with ethical and practice management. Competence is not confined to black-letter knowledge of your practice area.
• If your firm declares on your behalf, check what is being said. The statement is about you.

Areas where obligations have moved recently are an obvious place to start: our guides to the firm wide risk assessment, data protection after the DUA Act and verification duties around AI each address obligations that have changed since many solicitors last reviewed them.