On 30 October, SPLA launched the SPLAhub portal – a ‘members only’ area of the SPLA website which will provide South Pacific lawyers with free access to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) lectures and resources. 

 

SPLAhub is the culmination of twelve months of work to develop a coordinated and sustainable CPD initiative to meet the needs and priorities of South Pacific jurisdictions. At the face-to-face meeting convened in Nadi, Fiji in September 2019, attendees highlighted the need for accessible, quality CPD in South Pacific jurisdictions. In October 2019, the Secretariat developed a survey to identify CPD needs and priorities in SPLA’s member jurisdictions. The survey identified generalist topics including practice management, ethics, and advocacy to be clear priorities of lawyers in the region. In May 2020, the SPLA website was redeveloped to accommodate a ‘members only area’, with the view to building a free library of CPD resources.

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To launch SPLAhub, SPLA has partnered with the Queensland Law Society to present the “Practice Management Toolkit” – consisting of six lectures to be released between October 2020 and April 2021.

 

SPLA is also grateful to the Australian Legal Management Group of the Legal Practice Section of the Law Council of Australia for offering its five-part World Masters of Law Firm Management series titled “PC-19 Post Covid – Bring the future forward” to be posted on SPLAhub, as well as the International Law Section of the Law Council of Australia for making its eight-part International Law and Practice Course available to SPLAhub members.​