CPD, or Continuing Professional Development, is defined by the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) as the maintenance and enhancement of a lawyer’s professional knowledge, skills, attitudes and ethics throughout the individual’s career.

Every lawyer licensed to practise in Ontario must complete 12 hours of CPD each year, including a minimum of 3 Professionalism Hours devoted to topics of ethics, professionalism and/or practice management and up to 9 Substantive Hours.

 While every effort has been made to ensure the information presented here is accurate and up-to-date, please refer to the LSO website for more information regarding CPD. 

Professionalism Accreditation

The three hours of ethics, professionalism and/or practice management may take the form of stand-alone programs/activities or they may be incorporated into other CPD programs that include substantive material as well. Only Professionalism Hours must be accredited by the Law Society of Ontario. Purely substantive material need not be accredited. The OBA will strive to have as many programs as possible accredited by LSO for Professionalism hours, in addition to continuing to provide quality programs that will count towards a lawyer’s substantive CPD hours.

OBA CPD Programs – Current. Practical. Dynamic.

We recognize the high demands on lawyers time and we have gone to great lengths to provide a variety of methods to get your 12 credits per year. OBA’s CPD programming is brought to you by experts and industry leaders highly recognized in their practice areas.

Here’s how to get credits with the OBA:

A listing of upcoming OBA Continuing Professional Development programs, including the Substantive Hours and accredited Professionalism Hours for each program, can be found at oba.org/pd.

• Attend a live program in person
• Connect to a live program via webcast from the comfort of your home or office 
• View archived webcasts, video replays, or other recorded program 
• Act as an articling principle, become a mentor, get mentored or supervise a paralegal field placement (qualifies to a maximum of six hours/year)
• Write, edit books or articles (qualifies to a maximum of six hours/year) – Become an OBA newsletter editor!
• Teach/speak at CPD programs such as those offered by the OBA - for every hour of instruction, a teacher is credited with three hours toward his or her annual CPD requirement
• Participate in a study group
• Participate in bar/law association meetings – Join the OBA and become part of a Law Practice Section Executive
• Become an OBA Mentor or Mentee

All of these activities must be on topics which relate to the individual’s practice, which can include the law in other jurisdictions or non-law topics as long as these topics are related to the individual's practice.

Reporting CPD

All lawyers must report their CPD online via the LSO member portal and this can be done at any time in advance of the December 31st annual deadline.