How many CPD points do lawyers need each year?

Legal practice in Australia comes with a clear professional development obligation attached. For some practitioners, meeting it each year feels straightforward. For others, particularly those managing heavy caseloads or overseeing CPD across a team, knowing exactly where to start makes all the difference. At TEN The Education Network, we work with legal professionals across the country to make that process as straightforward as possible. This guide addresses the most common questions around CPD points for law professionals, online delivery options, and how to build a learning routine that works around a demanding practice.

Understanding CPD points for law professionals

Across every Australian state and territory, lawyers holding a current practising certificate must complete a minimum of 10 CPD points each year, with one point typically equating to one hour of qualifying activity. The CPD year runs from 1 April to 31 March in every jurisdiction, aligning with the practising certificate renewal cycle. Compliance is declared at the point of renewal, and lawyers are responsible for maintaining their own records of completed activities. Some regulators conduct random audits, so accurate and up-to-date record keeping is an important part of staying compliant.

The four core categories ethics and professional responsibility, practice management and business skills, professional skills, and substantive law, which apply nationally, with at least one point required in each. But "10 points, four categories" isn't the whole picture everywhere. South Australia and the Northern Territory require an additional point specifically in Bullying, Discrimination and Harassment, and Tasmania has its own additional wellbeing-related requirement on top of the standard four. If you practise in one of these jurisdictions, your annual plan needs to account for that extra category; it's not optional, and it's easy to miss if you're working from a generic checklist.

Legal CPD: What counts and what doesn't

Not every learning activity qualifies as a legal CPD activity, and understanding the boundaries matters when planning the year. Accredited webinars, seminars, conferences, masterclasses, and structured online programs all count toward the annual requirement, and online delivery is now widely accepted across Australian jurisdictions.

The detail that trips most practitioners up isn't really about online versus in-person, it's about interactive versus non-interactive. An interactive activity is one with a live or genuinely engaged component (think live webinars, or online courses with assessment and engagement built in), while non-interactive activities are passive formats such as pre-recorded video or audio with no interactive element.

Most jurisdictions cap how many of your 10 points can come from non-interactive activity, commonly around 5 points, meaning the remainder must be earned through interactive formats. This cap applies in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia, among others. Queensland is a notable exception: there's no such cap, and practitioners there can complete all 10 points through online learning, interactive or not.

Western Australia has its own specific framing worth knowing if you practise there: rather than a straight cap on recordings, the rule requires at least 5 of your 10 points to come from interactive activities each year. In practice, this has a similar effect to a cap on passive content, but it's worth understanding it as a minimum interactive requirement rather than a recording limit.

A live online webinar attended in real time is treated as interactive and counted the same as in-person attendance, regardless of jurisdiction, so for lawyers balancing CPD around a busy practice, live webinars are a reliable way to bank interactive points without leaving the office.

Self-directed or unstructured learning, such as reading legal journals, listening to non-accredited audio content, or informal peer discussion, may contribute in some jurisdictions, but typically within defined limits. Checking the specific rules of the jurisdiction in which you hold your practising certificate is always the right first step, particularly if you're relying heavily on recorded content.

Where can lawyers complete CPD online in Australia?

Online delivery has become the dominant format for legal professional development in Australia, and for good reason. The flexibility to complete accredited programs from any location, at any time that suits a busy practice, removes the scheduling barriers that made CPD compliance unnecessarily difficult in earlier years.

At TEN The Education Network, lawyers across Australia can access a comprehensive range of online CPD programs through live webinars, recorded sessions, podcast subscriptions, and dedicated webinar series. Live webinars count as interactive activity in every jurisdiction, making them a straightforward way to meet interactive requirements wherever you're based. Our platform covers every major area of legal practice from commercial law and employment law through to family law, property, insolvency, estate planning, and ethics, with content delivered by experienced practitioners and updated regularly to reflect current developments.

CPD for lawyers: Using the mandatory categories as a planning framework

Most lawyers approach CPD reactively, browsing available programs and booking what looks relevant when time allows. It works, but it creates unnecessary pressure, particularly as the March deadline approaches and the remaining category gaps become apparent.

A more effective approach starts with your jurisdiction's mandatory categories and works outward from there. At the beginning of each year, mapping one point to each of the four core categories and, if you practise in SA, the NT or Tasmania, your jurisdiction's additional category gives every practitioner a clear compliance foundation. The remaining points can then be deliberately allocated to deepen expertise in current practice areas, address knowledge gaps, or track significant developments in the law, while keeping an eye on your interactive/non-interactive balance along the way.

CPD for lawyers planned this way tends to produce better learning outcomes too. When programs are selected to fill a defined gap rather than just accumulate hours, the content is more relevant, more memorable, and more directly applicable to client work.

At TEN The Education Network, our program library is organised by practice area and category, making it straightforward to identify exactly which programs satisfy which mandatory requirements, including interactive formats  and to build a coherent annual learning plan rather than a disconnected list of completed sessions.

What is the best way for busy lawyers to complete CPD?

The most effective CPD strategies share a few common features. They spread learning across the year rather than concentrating it in the final quarter. They align content with current practice areas rather than selecting programs purely for compliance convenience. And they use format flexibility, live webinars, recorded sessions, and podcasts to fit learning into the natural rhythm of a working week rather than requiring extended time away from the practice, while keeping enough live or interactive sessions in the mix to meet jurisdictional requirements.

For lawyers managing heavy caseloads, podcast-format programs of around 20-30 minutes are a particularly practical option for the portion of CPD that can be completed through recorded content. A focused audio program completed during a commute or between appointments meaningfully contributes to the annual requirement without requiring a dedicated block of time.

At TEN The Education Network, our range of flexible delivery formats, including live webinars to cover your interactive requirements, is built around exactly this reality. Visit our website to explore subscription options, individual programs, and specialist series across all key areas of legal practice.