Virginia Live CLE Bundle 2021

Over fifty lawsuits related to artificial intelligence have been filed worldwide, with a myriad of issues at play. This course provides an overview of these suits, their comparative aspects, and the emerging themes among them. Legal practitioners working in or interested in art law will gain insight into national and international issues regarding AI, art, and the law.

Attendees will learn about complementary and contradictory rulings and policies in the U.S. and abroad in places such as China and the United Kingdom. Focus will also be given to the legal practitioner’s duties and responsibilities regarding the ethical use of generative AI tools in daily practice.

This course is designed for attorneys seeking an introduction to AI issues, both nationally and internationally, in the fields of art and law.

Learning Objectives:

1. Explore legal issues involving AI internationally. 
2. Examine legal issues involving AI in the U.S.
3. Review AI legal issues that are on Appeal in the U.S.
4. Assess the intersection of generative AI and ethics.

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Central Time: 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Mountain Time: 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Pacific Time: 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Alaska Time: 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Friday, April 17, 2026
Friday, April 24, 2026
Friday, May 1, 2026
Friday, May 8, 2026
Friday, May 15, 2026

This seminar will delve into the current criminal cases on the U.S. Supreme Court docket, providing insight for attorneys of all backgrounds. Attendees will be provided with background information on the current composition of the Supreme Court, along with a discussion on Supreme Court procedure and the practical considerations that underlie Supreme Court decisions, particularly in criminal law. Attendees will learn about current Supreme Court cases from both a legal and factual perspective, becoming aware of the legal issues that govern the decisions and how these decisions may impact parties, lawyers, judges, and legislators moving forward.

Cases will discuss both criminal law and criminal procedure cases under the U.S. Constitution and Federal statutes. Attendees will be provided with the legal and historical background of each case, and the presenter and attendees will discuss possible outcomes. Current events affecting criminal law before the Supreme Court will also be reviewed.

This course is suitable for attorneys at all levels seeking more knowledge on criminal Supreme Court cases.

Learning Objectives:

1. Review the current composition of the Supreme Court and how each Justice approaches issues based on the topic of law.
2. Examine each Justice’s judicial perspectives and how the most recent Supreme Court appointments have altered the composition of the Court.
3. Explore how the Supreme Court manages and disposes of cases from a practical perspective. This includes learning about the types of cases that come before the Court, the frequency of cases being overruled, and how litigants progress from the trial court stages of the Federal system through the U.S. Supreme Court.
4. Assess the legal elements underlying recent Supreme Court cases. This will include a discussion of Constitutional Amendments, such as the Fourth Amendment's search and Seizure Provisions, Miranda, and the Eighth Amendment's death penalty provisions, along with relevant Federal Statutes like the First Step Act and the Armed Career Criminals Act.
5. Evaluate the most critical criminal Supreme Court cases on the docket during this period, with an understanding of the specific issues facing the Court. This analysis will discuss the litigant’s arguments regarding the lower court decisions being appealed.
6. Predict a case outcome based on the information provided in the presentation to gain a deeper understanding of Supreme Court cases.

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:

Friday, October 9, 2026
Friday, December 4, 2026
Monday, December 21, 2026
Monday, December 28, 2026

With the ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments regarding access to rare earth elements (REEs) and critical technology, respectively, along with the spillover effects of trade tensions more broadly on the global trading system, many attorneys may seek guidance to evaluate the risks for clients involved in these industries. This program will help attendees recognize the mercurial swings in the United States international trade policy from enmeshment in trade relationships to isolationism and the consequences for the international trade system.

Topics that will be discussed include: considering the history and purpose of the post-WWII global trade regime via an examination of the 1944 Bretton Woods Institutions (i.e., IBRD, IMF, and GATT?WTO); evaluating the intended and actual semi-independent role of the USTR (United States Trade Representative) and Court of International Trade in trade disputes vis-à-vis intervention by the executive and legislative branches; assessing the history of rare earth element extraction and processing from the 1960s to the present identifying the departure of REE processors from the United States as due in part to less restrictive environmental regulations in China and elsewhere;and examining U.S.-China trade relations focusing on the details of the ongoing trade tension between key U.S. industries requiring refined rare earth elements (REEs) from China as the sole country currently capable of mass production of REEs in tension with China’s desire for critical technology transfers from the U.S. for economic growth and military development. Cases involving tariffs will be reviewed along with different economic theories involving resources and technology.

This course is designed for attorneys with any level of experience who are seeking to assess the legal, political, and economic consequences of restrictive trade practices to better advise clients in affected industries as to their options for risk avoidance.

Learning Objectives:

1. Consider the U.S.’s foreign policy continuum of engagement and disengagement with the global trade system from the Great Depression to the present and the consequences of that inconsistent praxis on the international system.
2. Review the legal history of the development of the current global trade regime, focusing on the aftermath of the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference (i.e., GATT/WTO, IMF, and IBRD), and consider whether the system is still well suited to manage current economic conflicts. 
3. Evaluate the intended and actual roles of the USTR (United States Trade Representative) and the Court of International Trade in trade disputes to depoliticize policy decision-making regarding international trade with the intent to avoid worsening economic recessions through reactionary Executive or Congressional action. 
4. Assess the “rare” earth elements (REE) and core industries implicated by conflicts over REEs, such as defense, aerospace, artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductor, and the automotive sectors.
5. Assess the Homer-Dixon Resource Scarcity Thesis and the Resource Curse Thesis as applied particularly to technologically advanced countries with substantial deposits of REE, such as the United States and China.
6. Analyze the consequences of E.O. 14156 declaring a national energy emergency and subsequently E.O. 14272 identifying supply chain vulnerabilities of critical resources as a significant threat to national security.

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Central Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Mountain Time: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Pacific Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Alaska Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Friday, May 1, 2026
Friday, May 22, 2026
Friday, June 12, 2026
Friday, July 24, 2026
Friday, August 14, 2026

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, April 20, 2026
Monday, April 27, 2026
Monday, May 4, 2026
Monday, May 11, 2026
Monday, May 18, 2026