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Plans by the Bar Standards Board to introduce a more flexible, outcomes-focused CPD scheme have met with widespread opposition from barristers. Only two of the proposals in its latest consultation received a positive response from individual barristers, while the Chancery Bar Association and Inns of Court expressed concerns

Solicitors will not have to declare on their practicing certificates that they carried out professional training for the year 2015-16, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has admitted. However, they will still have to do their training.

Many at the Bar and beyond will be familiar with the ‘10,000 hours’ theory – put forth by Swedish psychologist K Anders Ericsson and further propagated by popular writer Malcolm Gladwell. That is: the formula for success, in any field, is 10,000 hours of practice. Integral to this, but perhaps less well known, is the notion that such practice needs to be deliberate – carefully structured and executed in a way that will have the greatest results for performance. In other words, quality matters just as much as, if not more than, quantity.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has said that over 200 law firms of all sizes have opted into its new ‘continuing competence’ regime. From 1 April firms have been able to leave behind the old hours-based continuing professional development system.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s high-profile move away from the annual minimum 16 hour CPD requirement has been well documented and most in the profession will by now be aware that the change will be phased in from this spring and fully implemented by 1 November 2016. But does this really mean the end of (continuing) professional development training for solicitors?