MCLE

The California Bar requires all us attorneys to do continuing legal education yearly. Which is important, because, you know, laws have a tendency to change, get reinterpreted, etc. And if I want to stay marketable, so you know, I can be within at least 50 miles of LLK, I need to keep abreast of a lot of updated legal shennaniganz!

This is even more important for the Public Defender. We advise people, and sometimes we need to be on top of things to avoid seemingly outside consequences. This is never more relevant when representing those individuals with immigration issues.

Now, granted, here in Humboldt, there are seldom issues of immigration. It's a fairly homogeneous population (mostly white with a Native American population), but that can easily lull you in to assuming that everyone's a USC (US Citizen).

So it's even more important to be on top of it. Unfortunately, I missed my office's MCLE gathering a few months ago, so I was extremely pleased to see CPDA offer a very similar conference that I could listen to online!

If you are thinking about practicing criminal law, take a look at these materials- It's very important stuff!

http://defendingimmigrants.org/

And read Padilla v. Kentucky!