12 credit hours per year, reported every year (staggered by group). Verified against the PA bar or court authority.
| Total CLE required | 12 credit hours per year |
|---|---|
| Ethics requirement | 2 hrs (ethics / professionalism / substance abuse) |
| Reporting cycle | Every year (staggered by group) |
| Wellness / mental health credit | Qualifies within the ethics block |
| Online CLE accepted | Yes, all 12 hrs |
| Accreditation route | Approved (PA CLE Board) |
Note: Substance abuse qualifies within the required ethics hours.
Pennsylvania requires 12 hours every year. That is the most common requirement in the country: 20 of the 46 jurisdictions that mandate CLE set the same figure.
Pennsylvania recognizes wellness or mental health credit. Qualifies within the ethics block 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.
Pennsylvania requires 12 hours each year, of which 2 are earmarked for ethics. That leaves roughly 10 hours each year 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 is not evenly distributed across a bar. It follows the material. Criminal defense carries documented elevated exposure. The research found criminal lawyers scoring significantly higher on secondary trauma measures than non-criminal lawyers, a gap attributed to case material and client contact rather than caseload alone. Firms and offices in Pennsylvania doing criminal defense carry more of this 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 Pennsylvania is going to require the time anyway, it can be spent on the thing that is measurably breaking.
Pennsylvania requires 12 credit hours per year. Of that, the ethics requirement is 2 hrs (ethics / professionalism / substance abuse). The reporting cycle runs every year (staggered by group).
Yes, all 12 hrs. 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. Pennsylvania recognizes wellness or mental health credit: Qualifies within the ethics block Attorney Wellness Project delivers live, accredited programming in this category, taught by attorneys, judges, physicians, and psychologists.
Approved (PA CLE Board). Requirements change, so verify directly with the issuing authority before relying on any summary, including this one.
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