Virginia Live CLE Bundle 2021

The "big picture" challenges to legal ethics principles posed by advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related high-technology advances require consideration from attorneys. Stephan Hawking, the leading physicist of the latter 20th and early 21st centuries, predicted (until his death in 2018) that "artificial intelligence" would be mankind's "last invention." How near or far into the future is such a fate awaiting humanity? Will he be proven right, or will human intelligence (HI) manage to prevent such an apocalypse? How long will AI's "childhood" last? Can humans (or will humans) identify evolutionary changes warranting countermeasures so they don't become irreversible revolutionary changes for the worse rather than the better? Do not ethical duties of the legal profession necessarily include continuing vigilance regarding such technological changes to enable us to protect and preserve the tools (such as attorney-client confidentiality and privilege) needed for the legal profession to continue performing our most important mission: to protect liberty writ large?

Attendees will cover topics such as how AI was viewed in the past, how it has evolved in the present, and possible future implications. The types of AI and their classifications will be discussed. Participants will learn how the judiciary has treated AI and current questions and issues related to AI usage in the legal profession.

The format of this program combines the lecture method with the Socratic method, fostering extensive interactive participation and critical analysis of a broad range of issues relevant to the seminar's subject matter. This approach goes beyond merely chronological descriptions of specific topics and subtopics. In other words, the content of each workshop (and the order and extent of emphasis upon particular topics and subtopics) will be substantially influenced by the nature and extent of interactive participation regarding specific aspects thereof. Depending on the number of participants in a particular seminar, the format typically results in most, if not all, participants engaging in conversational-style, interactive discussions and analyses of specific topics during the seminar, and also permits interruptions, questions, challenges, and other contributions throughout the seminar. Think of collegially enjoyable and enlightening round-table discussions. It's a form of learning that involves thinking while interactively participating, rather than learning solely by listening (the latter of which is the lecture method).

This program is designed for any lawyer who understands: (a) that the very nature of the constitutional form of government is to protect the good of liberty from the evil of tyranny, (b) that, therefore, the primary mission of our profession is to protect liberty writ large within the bounds of the rule of law [in contrast to the rule of men (mankind)], and (c) that protecting such good from such evil requires our profession to be disciplined by understanding essential principles of science in seeking to prevent the latter from destroying the former.

Learning Objectives:

1. Refresh what should be every lawyer's common knowledge of unique aspects of the legal profession in contrast to all other professions, occupations, etc.: It's the effect of the Constitution's (and each state constitution's) vesting of "the judicial power" of the sovereign in its "Supreme Court" and its thereby incorporation of the evolutionary nature of the judiciary's common law inherent judicial power (i.e., sui generis power) to define, prescribe, and enforce educational, moral, ethical and civil standards for the practice of law and the status of lawyers as officers of the courts.
2. Understand that common law inherent judicial power (sui generis power) in an adversarial system created under common law, the supreme court of the sovereign (i.e., the U.S. Supreme Court and each state supreme court) creates structural and functional tools for the administration of justice – i.e., rules of evidence, burdens of proof, procedural rules, definitions of the practice of law, regulatory control over the conduct of attorneys, and the nature and scope of attorney-client confidentiality, attorney-client privilege, and attorney work-product. 
3. Examine how the judiciary generally encourages lawyers to utilize modern devices, programs, applications, and procedures, and in some contexts specifically requires the utilization of particular devices, programs, applications, and procedures while also requiring lawyers to utilize them in ways that comport with duties imposed by the judiciary upon lawyers.
4. Explore how lawyers' uses of AI and similar or related programs, applications and procedures intrinsically undermine the extent of privacy necessary for proper utilization of particular tools (such as attorney-client confidentiality, attorney-client privilege, and attorney work-product), and such undermining of privacy a fortiori interferes with, or jeopardizes, lawyers' abilities to utilize them in ways that comport with duties imposed by the judiciary upon lawyers. This creates a conundrum. 
5. Evaluate the significance of such a conundrum where privacy is undermined; lawyers must have sufficient scientific literacy to recognize the contexts in which technology can undermine or even negate efforts by lawyers to satisfy the legal and ethical duties imposed upon them by the judicial branch as "officers of the courts." 
6. Assess how the nature and ubiquity of technological threats to lawyers' ethical duties are such that efforts by individual lawyers to counter or negate such threats cannot succeed without overt and comprehensive regulatory measures by the courts to provide constitutionally effective countermeasures against such threats.

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Central Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Mountain Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Pacific Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Alaska Time: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Monday, January 12, 2026
Monday, January 19, 2026
Monday, January 26, 2026
Monday, February 2, 2026
Monday, February 9, 2026

The opportunity to learn about the seldom-explored area of sports law, combat sports law, is an excellent opportunity for an attorney, even if they do not practice in this field. This course provides attorneys with a unique opportunity to explore the specialized and often overlooked field of combat sports law. Whether or not you currently practice in this field, understanding the regulatory landscape of professional combat sports such as boxing and mixed martial arts (MMA) can enhance your legal expertise.

Attendees will gain a comprehensive overview of the procedural frameworks for challenging disciplinary actions and navigating the appeals process within these sports. The course will also highlight current trends and developments shaping the legal environment in combat sports.

Legal practitioners who handle or wish to expand their knowledge of the regulatory and disciplinary aspects of combat sports, as well as the dynamic and complex realm of sports law, will find this program especially valuable.

Learning Objectives:

1. Review the basics behind the regulatory and legal procedures of some of the world’s professional combat sports.
2. Consider where to look and what to think about when faced with an athlete in certain combat sports who has a rules and regulatory issue arise in the course of their career or during a particular bout or competition. 
3. Explore basic pointers to advise the agents and managers of athletes in certain combat sports as to how to handle rules and regulatory issues that may arise regarding their athletes.
4. Assess ways to educate athlete clients in various sports about how to avoid and mitigate certain violations of their chosen combat sport’s rules and regulations.
5. Examine exceptionally niche areas of sports law that help create a more well-rounded sports law practitioner.
6. Identify when the Court of Arbitration for Sport, or other judicial or quasi-judicial bodies, may or may not be available for an appeal in combat sports.

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Central Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Mountain Time: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Pacific Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Alaska Time: 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 6:00 AM - 8:00 AM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Monday, January 19, 2026
Monday, February 2, 2026
Monday, February 16, 2026
Monday, March 2, 2026
Monday, March 9, 2026

Many (if not most or all) lawyers would never take a seminar on "professionalism" unless required to do so by their mandatory CLE requirements.  Why?  James Wrenn, Jr. has been a lawyer since 1972 – long before mandatory CLE, and in those days, the better or best lawyers voluntarily attended three-to-six two-hour CLE seminars every year, most of which were on subjects directly related to their particular field of practice -- i.e., subjects serving their economic interests rather than subjects focusing on broader, generic aspects of good lawyering.  Mr. Wrenn was the representative from the "Young Lawyers Conference" on his state bar's CLE Committee.  (He was against proposals for mandatory CLE.)  Lawyers other than those he deemed the "better or best" tended to attend only one or two CLE seminars, if any, per year.  One of the committee's goals was to increase attendance at high-quality CLE seminars among all lawyers.  This included encouraging the embedding of contextually important ethics issues (including those focusing on broader, generic aspects of good lawyering) in virtually all bar-sponsored CLE seminars (all of which were voluntary rather than mandatory).

Virtually all lawyers agreed that regularly incorporating such ethics issues into seminars improved them, which otherwise focused almost entirely on subjects related to particular fields of practice. This is not meant to imply that before such "embedding," there were never seminars focusing entirely on ethics. Still, they were rare and usually served the purpose of informing lawyers of changes to the Rules governing ethics or procedures for enforcing them.  Although not all jurisdictions mandate CLE courses on "professionalism" (which is one reason attorneys "should attend" this seminar), there are essential good-lawyering and public-interest reasons that lawyers ought to attend this program on "professionalism" because it helps those not already among the "better/best" lawyers to progress into that group of lawyers.

Even though standards for what the CLE-Mandating/Approving Authorities deem to be "Professionalism" are "aspirational" in contrast to the mandatory legal-ethics standards (i.e., the Rules of Professional Conduct), they are nevertheless quite important despite the absence of enforceability in the same way the Rules are.

The format of this program combines the lecture method with the Socratic method, fostering extensive interactive participation and critical analysis of a broad range of issues relevant to the seminar's subject matter. This approach goes beyond merely chronological descriptions of specific topics and subtopics.  In other words, the content of each workshop (and the order and extent of emphasis upon particular topics and subtopics) will be substantially influenced by the nature and extent of interactive participation regarding specific aspects thereof. Depending on the number of participants in a particular seminar, the format typically results in most, if not all, participants engaging in conversational-style, interactive discussions and analyses of specific topics during the seminar, and also permits interruptions, questions, challenges, and other contributions throughout the seminar. Think of collegially enjoyable and enlightening round-table discussions.  It's a form of learning that involves thinking while interactively participating, rather than learning solely by listening (the latter of which is the lecture method).

This course is suitable for attorneys with any level of experience who are interested in professionalism and legal ethics. Even a lawyer deeming "professionalism" standards to be idealistic notions resting on a presumption that lawyers (and judges) are snowflakes easily melted by the heat of the adversarial system, absent what advocates of "professionalism" deem to be the cooling effects of civility, courtesy, collegiality, clarity, cooperativeness, and circumspection, is encouraged to attend.

Learning Objectives:

1. Refresh lawyer's common knowledge of unique aspects of the legal profession in contrast to all other professions, occupations, etc.:  It's the effect of the Constitution's (and each state constitution's) vesting of "the judicial power" of the sovereign in its "Supreme Court"  and its thereby incorporation of the evolutionary nature of the judiciary's common law inherent judicial power (i.e., sui generis power) to define, prescribe, and enforce educational, moral, ethical and civil standards for the practice of law and the status of lawyers as officers of the courts.
2. Explore how exercising such common law inherent judicial power (sui generis power) in an adversarial system created under common law, the supreme court of the sovereign (i.e., the U.S. Supreme Court and each state supreme court) creates structural and functional tools for the administration of justice -- i.e.,  rules of evidence, burdens of proof, procedural rules, and regulatory control over the conduct of attorneys. 
3. Examine how the judiciary generally encourages lawyers to participate actively in the regulatory control over the legal profession and the conduct of lawyers individually.  Therefore, each attorney must keep abreast of such disciplinary and regulatory activities and, as much as possible, actively participate (pro bono, of course) in and support such activities.
4. Assess how and why what CLE authorities describe as "professionalism" is vital as a factor likely to increase, rather than diminish, the public's confidence in the system of justice.
5. Analyze the variety of ways in which a variety of states (but not all states) have formally promulgated rules describing behavioral attributes of conduct by lawyers evincing "professionalism" even though a number of such states have declined to use "professionalism" as the proper description of the mode of behavior – to learn that there's no one-size-fits-all definition of such behavior. 
6. Differentiate among the many duties imposed on lawyers; one of them is to apply critical analysis to all of the legal ethics standards as well as the procedural standards for their enforcement to perhaps motivate legal professionals to try harder to comply, to understand better the "spirit" (rather than merely the "letter") of such standards, and to be willing to serve on Bar committees to study (and potentially propose modifications of) such standards.

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Central Time: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Mountain Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Pacific Time:  10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alaska Time: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
Tuesday, February 10, 2026

One of the two broad topics this seminar focuses on is Model Rule 8.4, which prohibits lawyers and law firms from engaging in invidious sexual discrimination. The other is sexual activity within the attorney-client relationship. Regarding the former, every lawyer ought to want to stay abreast of issues or standards involving sexual discrimination within the profession. Regarding the latter, even though most lawyers would say, "I'd never even consider, much less engage in, sexual activity with a client, so why should I take a seminar titled 'Sexual Ethical Issues'"? The ethically responsible answer would be "Even though you're certain you'd never engage In sexual activity with a client -- and thus have no need to learn about the 'ethics' or lack thereof with respect thereto, your ordinary, behavior, conduct or attitude may be construed by others as manifesting sexual overtures and, as a lawyer, you ought to be interested in knowing whether your profession is responsibly regulating sexual activity on the part of lawyers within their attorney-client relationships.”

The anti-discriminatory, anti-harassment aspect of the seminar focuses on ABA Model Rule 8.4 (or equivalent state-supreme-court rules), which defines "misconduct" as any conduct evincing "harassment or discrimination based on… sex …, sexual orientation, [or] gender identity." Those rules are relatively uniform from state to state, but of course, their interpretation is generally a state-law issue rather than a federal-law issue. The sexual activity aspect of the seminar focuses on ABA Model Rule 1.8(j) (or equivalent state-supreme-court rules) governing sexual conduct by a lawyer with (or towards) a client. The content of this latter category of Rules varies quite a lot from one state to the next, and several states have declined to adopt a rule specifically regulating sexual "activity."

The format of this program combines the lecture method with the Socratic method, fostering extensive interactive participation and critical analysis of a broad range of issues relevant to the seminar's subject matter. This approach goes beyond merely chronological descriptions of specific topics and subtopics. In other words, the content of each workshop (and the order and extent of emphasis upon particular topics and subtopics) will be substantially influenced by the nature and extent of interactive participation regarding specific aspects thereof. Depending on the number of participants in a particular seminar, the format typically results in most, if not all, participants engaging in conversational-style, interactive discussions and analyses of specific topics during the seminar, and also permits interruptions, questions, challenges, and other contributions throughout the seminar. Think of collegially enjoyable and enlightening round-table discussions. It's a form of learning that involves thinking while interactively participating, rather than learning solely by listening (the latter of which is the lecture method).

This program is designed for any attorney interested in ensuring a more equitable environment free from sexual discrimination.

Learning Objectives:

1. Refresh what should be every lawyer's common knowledge of unique aspects of the legal profession in contrast to all other professions, occupations, etc.: It's the effect of the Constitution's (and each state constitution's) vesting of "the judicial power" of the sovereign in its "Supreme Court" and its thereby incorporation of the evolutionary nature of the judiciary's common law inherent judicial power (i.e., sui generis power) to define, prescribe, and enforce educational, moral, ethical and civil standards for the practice of law and the status of lawyers as officers of the courts.
2. Understand that the supreme court of the sovereign (i.e., the U.S. Supreme Court and each state supreme court) creates structural and functional tools for the administration of justice from common law inherent judicial power (sui generis power) in an adversarial system created under common law, -- i.e., rules of evidence, burdens of proof, procedural rules, and regulatory control over the conduct of attorneys. 
3. Engage actively in the regulatory control over the legal profession generally and the conduct of lawyers individually, as the judiciary typically encourages lawyers to participate. Therefore, each attorney must keep abreast of such disciplinary and regulatory activities and, as much as possible, to actively participate (pro bono, of course) in and support such activities.
4. Explore the types of conduct by a lawyer that would constitute (or that might be construed as) harassment or unlawful discrimination regarding sex, gender, or orientation. Generally, there are not wide variations in the content (or interpretation) of the state-by-state versions of ABA Model Rule 8.4, defining as "misconduct" any conduct evincing "harassment or discrimination based on… sex …, sexual orientation, [or] gender identity."
5. Review types of conduct that would constitute (or that may be construed as) "misconduct" involving sexual activity with or towards a client under ABA Model Rule 1.8(j) or under varying state-by-state versions of such Rule (or in states which have declined to adopt any Rule specifically regulating the subject matter). 
6. Evaluate that any Rule or law governing "sex" and/or "sexual orientation" or "gender" ought to be construed per whatever is the current state of medical knowledge on matters such as "XY" and "XX" chromosomes, does the intrinsically pliable nature of terms such as "orientation" and "gender" thereby somehow render such chromosomal terminology pliable (rather than empirical, scientific descriptions of the biological status of males and females) even though the statistical variations (in XY and XX chromosomes) comprise incredibly tiny percentages of deviations from the norm? So, how should attorneys view deviations from that norm? For example, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, such deviations prohibit different treatment unless it is reasonably warranted in the context of such treatment. For example, the disqualification of a person with a severe peanut allergy from employment requiring proximity to peanuts would not constitute an illegal form of "discrimination." Could the XX or XY status of a lawyer warrant different treatment without such treatment being deemed violative of the Rule 8.4 prohibition against sexual discrimination?

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Central Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Mountain Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Pacific Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Alaska Time: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
Tuesday, February 10, 2026