30 credit hours every 2 years, reported every 2 years. Verified against the IL bar or court authority.
| Total CLE required | 30 credit hours every 2 years |
|---|---|
| Ethics requirement | 6 hrs professional responsibility |
| Reporting cycle | Every 2 years |
| Bias / EDI credit | 1 hr diversity & inclusion |
| Wellness / mental health credit | 1 hr mental health / substance abuse |
| Online CLE accepted | Yes |
| Accreditation route | Approved (MCLE Board) |
Note: Both a mental-health hour and a diversity hour are mandated within the 6 PR hours.
Illinois's 30 hours over two years works out to 15 hours a year. That matches thirteen of the 46 jurisdictions that mandate CLE, the most common requirement in the country.
Illinois recognizes wellness or mental health credit. 1 hr mental health / substance abuse This is the most direct route to satisfying part of your requirement with substantive training rather than a box-ticking exercise. AWP programs are built for exactly this category: live, taught by physicians, judges, and practising attorneys, and grounded in the neurobiology of cumulative stress rather than general wellness advice.
Illinois requires 30 hours every 2 years, of which 6 are earmarked for ethics. That leaves roughly 24 hours every 2 years that you choose the content for. Those are the hours in question.
The 2026 national study of 39,036 lawyers found that 47.5 percent reported high or very high work-related burnout, and that moderate or higher symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress ran at 21.6, 20.4 and 18.9 percent. The earlier 2016 study had found something that surprised the profession: the risk concentrated among younger attorneys and those in their first ten years. The prior assumption ran the other way. It is shaping the careers of the people a firm has most recently invested in.
Exposure follows the material rather than the job title, and it is not only the attorneys and advocates who carry it. Judges are not insulated by seniority. They absorb the same material from the bench without the advocate's protective sense of acting for someone, and one study found 63 percent reporting at least one vicarious trauma symptom. Firms, offices, and courts in Illinois 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 Illinois is going to require the time anyway, it can be spent on the thing that is measurably breaking.
Illinois requires 30 credit hours every 2 years. Of that, the ethics requirement is 6 hrs professional responsibility. 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.
Yes. Illinois recognizes wellness or mental health credit: 1 hr mental health / substance abuse Attorney Wellness Project delivers live, accredited programming in this category, taught by attorneys, judges, physicians, psychologists, and coaches.
Approved (MCLE Board). Requirements change, so verify directly with the issuing authority before relying on any summary, including this one.
Accredited, live CLE in secondary traumatic stress, work-related burnout, and career sustainability, delivered by 41 lawyers, judges, physicians, psychologists, and coaches. In person and virtual, nationwide.
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