18 credit hours every 2 years, reported every 2 years. Verified against the GA bar or court authority.
| Total CLE required | 18 credit hours every 2 years |
|---|---|
| Ethics requirement | 3 hrs ethics + 2 hrs professionalism |
| Reporting cycle | Every 2 years |
| Online CLE accepted | Yes |
| Accreditation route | Approved (Commission on CLE) |
Note: Moved from a 12-hr annual to an 18-hr biennial requirement effective Jan 1, 2026.
Georgia's 18 hours over two years works out to 9 hours a year. That is on the lighter end. 43 of the 46 mandating jurisdictions ask for more.
Georgia does not carry a separate wellness or mental health category. Wellness and secondary trauma training is generally applied toward the general credit requirement here. General credit is the largest category in the country. Of the 51 United States jurisdictions, 16 recognize wellness or mental health credit specifically and 16 mandate bias or inclusion credit, which means most attorneys satisfy this kind of training as general hours.
Georgia requires 18 hours every 2 years, of which 3 are earmarked for ethics. That leaves roughly 15 hours every 2 years that you choose the content for. Those are the hours in question.
A systematic review of the research found secondary trauma in legal professionals to be significantly higher than in mental health professionals, social workers, psychologists, and prison officers. Criminal lawyers scored higher than non-criminal lawyers, and judges higher than barristers. This is not a resilience deficit. It is dose response to material the job requires you to handle.
Exposure follows the material rather than the job title, and it is not only the attorneys and advocates who carry it. Prosecutors and their investigators review evidence most professions never encounter, often without the debriefing structures that police and clinical staff receive as a matter of course. Firms, offices, and courts in Georgia whose work runs through material like this carry more of it than a general commercial practice does, and their training needs differ accordingly.
These are competence issues, not comfort issues. They surface as missed deadlines, degraded judgment on live matters, ethics complaints, and the departure of lawyers a firm has already paid to train. If Georgia is going to require the time anyway, it can be spent on the thing that is measurably breaking.
Georgia requires 18 credit hours every 2 years. Of that, the ethics requirement is 3 hrs ethics + 2 hrs professionalism. The reporting cycle runs every 2 years.
Yes. Rules on self-study versus live or interactive formats vary, and newly admitted attorneys are often held to stricter requirements than experienced ones. Confirm with the accrediting authority before enrolling.
Georgia does not maintain a separate wellness or mental health credit category. Such programming is generally applied toward general credit. Many states permit self-application of general credit using a certificate of attendance; confirm the process with the accrediting authority.
Approved (Commission on CLE). Requirements change, so verify directly with the issuing authority before relying on any summary, including this one.
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