law society

The new LSUC portal — headway or headache?

Tax lawyer Sandra Rosier discovers that the night before the deadline might not be the best time to register her CPD credits
Tax lawyer Sandra Rosier discovers that the night before the deadline might not be the best time to register her CPD credits

Your career will be in shambles. Your people will hang their heads in shame. These were my thoughts as I attempted to log into the LSUC Portal to register my Continuing Professional Development credits on New Year’s Eve. Administrative suspension was suddenly real.  I had been trying on and off to register for two weeks. Surely, I thought, nobody would be crazy enough to try at 11 o’clock on December 31st?  “Is this how you plan to ring in the New Year?” my husband asked, with the smugness of the CPD-compliant, as he sipped from his champagne flute.

Lawyers who have been practicing for more than two years must complete at least 12 hours of eligible CPD credits each year, at least three of which must be Professionalism Hours. The jury is still out on whether these requirements will have any substantive impact on the quality of legal services in Ontario. Meanwhile, a cottage industry of for-profit CPD certified programs has emerged. Cha-ching.

As for my own CPD credits, I have yet to register them. The LSUC Portal shut down between January 1 and 19 for an upgrade. The good people at the Law Society heard the angry, shouting masses, and now they’re promising an efficient and logical new CPD registration process designed to accommodate a defiant breed of procrastinators. What could possibly go wrong?

I got a reassuring note from the LSUC last week that it will not administratively suspend stragglers like myself until after the LSUC Portal reopens and people have had a few days to register their CPD credits. Still, once bitten. Those warnings about the high volume of Portal traffic during the last weeks of December are not to be ignored.

Folks, register your CPD credits as you complete them. Next New Year’s Eve, I will be sipping champagne and smugly CPD compliant.