Doctors, engineers, and accountants in South Africa are all required to keep learning throughout their careers, tracked through formal continuing professional development points. Legal practitioners, surprisingly, are not, at least not yet.
This article looks at what continuing professional development actually means, where the South African legal profession currently stands on it, the ongoing conversation around introducing it, and why it matters regardless of whether it's compulsory.
What is continuing professional development?
Continuing professional development, or CPD, refers to the ongoing process by which professionals maintain, develop, and expand their knowledge and skills throughout their careers. It's built on the idea that qualifying once isn't enough. Fields evolve, laws change, and professionals need structured ways to stay current.
CPD typically works on a points or credit system. Professionals earn points by completing recognised learning activities, attending seminars, completing accredited courses, publishing articles, or engaging in mentoring, and accumulate a required number of points over a set cycle, often measured in years.
In many regulated professions, CPD isn't optional. It's tied directly to maintaining registration or a practising certificate, meaning professionals who don't meet their points requirement risk losing their ability to practise.
The standing of CPD in the South African legal profession
Here's where the legal profession differs from many others. South Africa currently has no mandatory CPD requirement for attorneys or advocates.
This might come as a surprise, particularly given that other regulated professions in the country, including healthcare, engineering, and accounting, have had compulsory CPD schemes in place for close to two decades. Health practitioners, for example, have been required to accumulate continuing education units since 2007, with the Health Professions Council of South Africa empowered to suspend practitioners who fail to comply. Engineers and accountants operate under similar compulsory frameworks.
The legal profession has discussed introducing something comparable for years. As far back as 2012, the Law Society of South Africa signalled its intention to roll out a voluntary CPD scheme for attorneys, with the explicit hope that it would eventually become mandatory once the Legal Practice Act was in force. The plan at the time envisioned a three-year credit cycle, with newly admitted attorneys required to earn more credits than senior practitioners, various exemptions for long-serving or incapacitated practitioners, and an accreditation authority to oversee approved training providers.
More than a decade on, and despite the Legal Practice Act now being law and the Legal Practice Council established as the profession's regulator, a formal, compulsory CPD points system for South African legal practitioners still hasn't materialised. Voluntary training, professional development courses, and accredited seminars remain widely available and widely used, but there is currently no statutory requirement forcing practitioners to accumulate a set number of CPD points to maintain their right to practise.
Discussions around implementation
The absence of mandatory CPD hasn't lacked debate. When the idea was first proposed, reaction from the profession was mixed.
Supporters argued that CPD was long overdue, pointing out that law is a constantly shifting discipline and that formalised, ongoing learning would raise the standard of legal services, strengthen public trust in the profession, and reduce the risk of professional liability arising from outdated knowledge.
Critics, meanwhile, raised concerns about cost, administrative burden, and the practicality of mandatory attendance requirements for busy practitioners, particularly smaller firms and sole practitioners without the resources of larger firms. There was broad agreement that any scheme needed to be affordable, flexible, and genuinely valuable, rather than simply another regulatory box to tick.
That tension between the clear benefits of structured ongoing learning and the practical challenges of mandating it across an enormous and varied profession appears to be part of why implementation has stalled. Building the infrastructure needed (a practitioner database, an accreditation system for training providers, a reporting mechanism, and a compliance framework) is no small undertaking.
The benefits of continuing professional development for the legal profession
Even without a compulsory framework, the case for continuing professional development in law remains strong.
Keeping knowledge current: Legislation, case law, and regulatory frameworks change constantly. Structured CPD ensures practitioners stay informed rather than relying on knowledge that may be years out of date.
Building professional confidence and credibility: Practitioners who actively invest in their own development tend to approach their work with greater confidence, and clients notice the difference.
Supporting career progression: Ongoing training provides a clear, demonstrable record of growth, which can support promotion, specialisation, or a shift into new practice areas.
Reducing professional risk: Practitioners with outdated knowledge are more exposed to errors, and by extension, professional liability. Regular development directly mitigates that risk.
Strengthening the profession's reputation: A profession that visibly commits to ongoing learning builds greater public trust, an important consideration for an industry so dependent on client confidence.
Sharing best practice: When practitioners engage in structured learning together, whether through seminars, conferences, or courses, it creates opportunities to exchange knowledge and strengthen standards across the profession as a whole.
Conclusion
Continuing professional development may not yet be mandatory for South African legal practitioners, but the arguments in its favour — sharper skills, reduced risk, stronger client trust, and a more credible profession — apply whether or not a regulator requires it. Given the direction other regulated professions in South Africa have already taken, and the LPC's ongoing mandate to set standards for the profession, it's reasonable to expect this conversation to continue.
In the meantime, practitioners who want to stay ahead don't need to wait for a mandate. The Gawie le Roux Institute of Law offers practical, relevant training across a wide range of legal disciplines, ideal for attorneys, candidate attorneys, and paralegals who want to keep their skills sharp and their knowledge current. Explore our training and invest in your own professional development today.
FAQs
What is meant by continuing professional development?
Continuing professional development refers to the ongoing process of maintaining, developing, and expanding professional knowledge and skills throughout a person's career, typically through structured learning activities such as courses, seminars, mentoring, and accredited training.
What are the 5 types of CPD?
CPD activities are generally grouped into a few broad categories: structured or formal learning (courses, seminars, and workshops with a facilitator); self-directed or informal learning (reading journals, articles, and research); on-the-job or experiential learning (mentoring, coaching, and practical experience gained through daily work); professional activity (contributing to committees, professional bodies, or industry initiatives); and reflective practice (reviewing and evaluating one's own performance to identify learning needs). Together, these categories allow professionals to develop through a mix of formal training and practical, real-world experience.
Last updated on 16 September 2026.