No discussion of free CLE can omit FreeCLE.com.
FreeCLE.com, the result of unremitting pro bono labor by Washington State attorney Edward V. Hiskes, has hosted literally dozens of credits of AV CLE - free for all! Generally, the programs are first webcast live (therefore eligible for live credit) and then made available in recorded format: totally and absolutely free. The site doesn't even have ads!
FreeCLE.com focusses on Washington State; some programs are also approved in other states; there appears to have been some success with this, per a notice in the December 2008 Florida Bar News. Keep in mind that this is totally a volunteer project and therefore it may be completely up to lawyers in other states to apply for credit approval in their jurisdictions.
The site is old-skool bare-bones: no style sheet, no graphics, not even "About Us". That's ok; you can figure it out pretty easily (...after all, you're some kinds of lawyer, so exercise your deductive facilities!)
According to SiteAnalytics, FreeCLE.com gets a few hundred unique visitors a month, naturally peaking at end-of-year. When you consider that there are hundreds of thousands of active attorneys in the United States, this seems to be a mercifully small number, considering what the web traffic could be.
Well done, Attorney Hiskes!
The programs at freecle.com have been approved by the Wyoming State Bar, which allows attorneys to garner up to 5 hours of online CLE credit annually.
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