Lawyers in New York will soon have to take at least a one-hour cybersecurity course as part of their continuing legal education requirements, beginning in July 2023.

Although Florida and North Carolina require some technology training as part of their CLE requirements, New York is the first state to require coursework that specifically deals with the subject of cybersecurity, data privacy or data protection.

The new CLE requirement requires one hour of CLE related to cybersecurity, privacy and data protection every two years. The hour can be related to lawyers’ ethical obligations regarding data protection or to technological aspects of protecting law office and client data.

The mandated one-hour training will count toward the 32-hour CLE requirement for new lawyers in their first two years after admission to the bar, as well as toward the 24-hour biennial CLE requirement for “veteran” attorneys.

Lawyers will be able to apply up to three hours of cybersecurity ethics training toward their ethics and professionalism CLE requirement.

The New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division adopted the cybersecurity CLE requirement based on a recommendation from the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Technology and the Legal Profession.

You can read more about the new requirement here.

Be assured that Marino Legal CLE will have educational programs in our CLE bundles by the end of this year that will allow New York attorneys to satisfy the new requirement. If your CLE deadline is quickly approaching, check out our newest 24 credit New York CLE bundle here.