Examples of CPD topics that relate to each of the following categories
Note: The example topics listed below are by way of illustration only and are not intended to be exhaustive.
Equality and Wellbeing (EW)
- Staff welfare (including WHS, staff wellbeing and the law relating to discrimination, harassment, and bullying)
- Awareness training
- Family safety and family violence
- Unconscious bias
- Bystander training
- Sexual harassment
- Bullying
- Mental health
- Working with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
- Sex, gender and diversity and the law
- Indigenous issues
Ethics (E)
- Conflicts of interest and undue influence
- How to identify an ethical issue
- Communicating directly with third parties
- Duty of competence
- Duty of confidentiality, including when it can/should be breached
- Difference between duty of confidentiality and legal professional privilege
- Undertakings
- Duties to the court
- Duty not to abuse the court process or the administration of justice
Practice Management (PM)
- Staff welfare (including WH&S, staff wellbeing and the law relating to discrimination, harassment, and bullying)
- Staff management (including employment law; developing an appropriate level and balance of employee skills and expertise within the firm/department; identifying and drawing upon resources within and outside the firm/department)
- Effective use of technology
- File management
- Caseload management
- Risk management
- Costs rules
- Trust accounting
- Financial management (including understanding and interpreting financial statements and cash flow management)
- Business and strategic planning
Professional Skills (PS)
- Communication and interpersonal skills
- Giving advice — identifying the options; how to break bad news
- Client interviewing
- Taking a witness statement
- Plain English drafting and letter-writing
- Use of precedents
- Negotiation and mediation skills
- Career and personal development
- Advocacy
- Legal research skills
Substantive Law (SL)
- Legal theory
- Legal procedure
- Developments in the law
- Legislative reform