Practice note, Adopting an in-house legal department continuing professional development (CPD) policy describes in-house legal department continuing professional development (CPD) policies. The note addresses:  

• CPD requirements, including the reasons for having CPD requirements and examples of CPD requirements.  
• The importance and benefits of having an effective in-house legal department CPD policy.  
• Best practices for developing, implementing and managing an in-house legal department CPD policy.  

While this note focuses on in-house lawyers, many of the guidelines and principles also apply when other members of the legal department, including legal department operations (LDO) personnel and legal assistants, participate in CPD activities to enhance their professional knowledge.  

This Practice note can be used in conjunction with Standard document, In-house legal department continuing professional development (CPD) policy which is a legal department policy for participation by its in-house lawyers and other department members in continuing professional development (CPD) activities. This policy identifies the legal department member responsible for administering the policy, sets out the responsibilities of the policy administrator and legal department personnel participating in CPD programmes and contains other standard policy provisions.  

For further information on CPD activities and the range of CPD resources available on Practical Law Australia, see Toolkit, Continuing professional development (CPD) on the Practical Law In-house resource centre.