COVID—19 Update - New South Wales Bar Association CPD’s and conferences

After careful thought and deliberation of our duty in the face of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak, and in what we believe is in the best interests of our members, staff and the wider community, the Bar Association has made the difficult decision to cancel all group gatherings, including all CPDs, conferences and events, effective immediately.

There will be no access to the common room for CPD sessions from Monday 16 March until further notice. The association's Professional Development Department will endeavour to proceed with our current CPD program as an online offering only. The department will work with the presenters to record as many presentations as possible and put these up online with the papers.

The cancellation will also affect the two upcoming CPD conferences, Sydney on Saturday 21 March and Parramatta on Saturday 28 March. We will provide a full refund to all registered attendees. We appreciate your patience as we work hard to process all refunds in a timely and efficient manner.

We are aware that COVID-19 may affect the ability of some practitioners to satisfy their continuing professional development (CPD) obligations for the CPD year ending 31 March 2020.

We note there is no limit to the number of points a barrister practising in New South Wales, can earn via video streaming and private study of audio visual material. Bar Association members are encouraged to access the association's online streaming service, CPD Online. CPD Online provides access to all the latest Bar Association seminars, along with any papers provided by presenters: https://cpd-streaming.nswbar.asn.au/login.

If you have misplaced your CPD Online login and password details you are able to reset your details by clicking on 'member sign in' which appears in the top right-hand corner of the screen on our homepage. You then click on 'unknown password or username', this will then prompt you to add your surname and date of birth. This will trigger an email to be sent to you with your new details. The email will be sent to the registered email address on our records.

In addition, in recent months, the Association has taken steps to expand the definition and provide clarity on CPD Activity. For further information please refer to the Legal Profession Uniform Continuing Professional Development (Barristers) Rules 2015, in particular rules 6 & 6A.

The information surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic is changing rapidly, and we are doing our best to remain as responsive as we can to meet the requirements of our members. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this uncertain time.

Members will be kept up to date with further developments via In Brief and the Member Dashboard.