CLE credits are the hours regulators require attorneys to complete to keep a law license active in the jurisdictions that mandate continuing legal education.
There is no single national system: each jurisdiction writes its own rules, and they differ on everything from the total (Hawaii asks for 3 credit hours a year, Colorado 45 every three years) to whether extra hours carry over.
This page explains the five moving parts: what a credit is, categories, carryover, exemptions and reporting.
What a CLE credit is
A CLE credit is a unit of approved continuing legal education, counted in hours.
New Hampshire's rule states its requirement in minutes instead: 720 minutes (12 hours) a year, with at least 120 minutes (2 hours) on ethics, professionalism, or preventing malpractice, substance abuse or attorney-client disputes.
States including Alabama, California and Colorado label the requirement MCLE — mandatory continuing legal education.
How courses get approved for credit differs by state.
The State Bar of Arizona does not pre-approve CLE providers or programs; lawyers there self-certify attendance by affidavit.
New Hampshire no longer requires pre- or post-approval of courses; credits are entered in the Attorney Reporting Tool.
Alaska sits at the open end: a course approved by any other mandatory-CLE jurisdiction is automatically approved there.
The worth of an hour also depends on the format it was earned in.
- Alabama gives no MCLE credit for self-study.
- Indiana does not accept self-study or downloaded CLE either — distance courses count only if they are interactive and attendance is verified.
- Texas sits in the middle: at least 12 of its 15 hours must be accredited CLE, up to 3 (including 1 ethics hour) may be self-study, and there is no in-person requirement — all 15 hours can be completed online.
- California requires at least 12.5 of its 25 hours to be participatory and lets up to half be self-study.
- Alaska sets no cap on recorded or technology-delivered CLE.
- Delaware requires at least 12 of its 24 hours every two years to be earned in person at live courses.
The totals themselves are a range, not a national number: 3 credit hours a year in Hawaii at the low end, 45 hours per three-year compliance period in Colorado at the high end of the rules we read.
The full state-by-state breakdown lives on our CLE requirements by state page.
Rules change — verify with your CLE regulator
CLE credit categories: general hours, ethics and specialty credits
A state's headline number can hide a set of required categories.
Take ethics hours: Texas folds 3 ethics hours into its 15-hour year, Pennsylvania requires at least 2 ethics hours within its 12 annual hours, Indiana sets aside 3 of its 36 three-year hours for professional responsibility, and Washington requires 6 ethics credits inside its 45-credit, three-year period — including at least 1 "equity" credit.
Where the slicing gets finer:
- California: of its 25 hours, at least 4 legal ethics, 2 elimination of bias (at least 1 on implicit bias), 2 competence (at least 1 on preventing and detecting substance use or mental health issues), 1 technology and 1 civility.
- New York: experienced attorneys add 1 hour of diversity, inclusion and elimination of bias and 1 hour of cybersecurity, privacy and data protection (22 NYCRR 1500.22, cybersecurity effective July 1, 2023) to at least 4 ethics and professionalism hours in each 24-hour, two-year cycle.
- Minnesota: its 45 hours must include at least 3 ethics or professional-responsibility hours, 2 elimination-of-bias hours and 1 mental health or substance use hour.
- North Carolina: 1 technology hour and 1 professional well-being hour inside the 24 biennial hours, each taken in at least one-hour increments.
- Nevada: 13 annual hours split into 10 general, 2 ethics and 1 substance abuse, addiction or mental health hour.
- Colorado: at least 2 of the 7 professional-responsibility hours must be equity, diversity and inclusivity, with at least 5 in legal ethics or legal professionalism.
- Illinois: the 6 professional-responsibility hours must include 1 hour of diversity and inclusion and 1 of mental health and substance abuse — or completion of the yearlong Lawyer-to-Lawyer Mentoring Program.
- Florida: under the rule in force as of October 1, 2026, the 30-hour, three-year cycle must include at least 3 hours of technology and at least 5 covering ethics, professionalism, substance use disorder or mental health and wellness.
Categories can also be capped.
Wisconsin limits wellness topics — substance abuse, mental illness, stress, work/life balance — to 6 hours and law practice management to 6 hours per reporting period.
Indiana caps non-legal-subject credit at 12 hours per period, and private-sector lawyers can count at most 3 in-house hours.
Rules like these are why two lawyers with the same headline total can face different courses.
The requirement can also be earned partly outside the classroom, through pro bono work.
- Arizona: 1 CLE hour per 5 pro bono hours through an approved legal services organization, counted as self-study.
- Colorado: up to 9 credits per three-year period for qualifying uncompensated pro bono work, none of it professional-responsibility credit.
- Connecticut: up to 6 hours a year, at 1 credit per 3 hours of service.
- Virginia: from May 1, 2026, 1 hour per 4 hours of qualifying pro bono service, up to 5 hours per period.
- Alaska: 1 general credit per 2 hours of free civil legal services supervised by a qualified legal services provider.
Not everything converts, though — New Jersey gives no CLE credit for publishing.
CLE carryover: what happens to extra hours
Finish more hours than your period requires, and the surplus may — or may not — be worth anything.
The door can close completely: Idaho allows no carryover, crediting hours only to the reporting period in which they were earned, and Utah, Minnesota, California and Florida are just as absolute.
Florida's own rule spells the logic out: credits beyond 30 in a cycle do not count toward the next one.
In every carryover rule we read, the allowance came with caps or conditions.
| State | What carries over |
|---|---|
| Texas | Up to 15 hours (including 3 ethics) into the next compliance year |
| Washington | Up to 15 excess credits (up to 2 of them ethics) into the next period |
| Kentucky | Into the next 2 educational years, capped at 24 credits including 4 ethics credits |
| Montana | Up to 30 excess interactive hours into the next two reporting years; "other methods" credits cannot carry forward |
| Delaware | Up to 20 excess hours into the next two-year period; ethics hours carry forward only as general credit |
| Mississippi | Up to 12 excess hours, but excess ethics hours do not carry forward as ethics hours |
| Missouri | Up to 15 excess live accredited hours and up to 3 excess ethics hours; self-study does not count toward carryover |
| Pennsylvania | Live-course credits carry forward for two years, up to twice the annual requirement; distance credits do not carry and are capped at 6 hours per period |
| Kansas | Up to 10 excess general hours; extra ethics hours carry only as general credit |
| North Carolina | Up to 12 hours, but carryover cannot satisfy the ethics, technology or well-being hours |
| New York | Up to 6 excess credits for experienced attorneys into the next cycle |
| Connecticut | No more than 2 excess credit hours |
| Hawaii | Up to 3 excess hours (including ethics) earned in the immediately preceding year |
| Oklahoma | Excess hours may carry forward to the next year only |
Three patterns sit behind those rows.
First, a cap can run for a single period only: Oklahoma's excess hours carry to the next year and no further, and West Virginia allows up to 6 excess hours to the next reporting period, none of it toward its ethics-type minimum.
Second, special-category hours can refuse to carry as themselves: Delaware and Kansas convert excess ethics to general credit, Mississippi's excess ethics does not carry as ethics, and North Carolina's carryover cannot satisfy the ethics, technology or well-being hours.
Third, format restrictions travel with the hours: Missouri's self-study cannot satisfy the ethics or bias hours and does not count toward carryover, Pennsylvania's distance credits do not carry forward, and Montana's "other methods" credits cannot carry at all.
Carryover can also be forfeited outright: missing the June 30 or July 31 deadlines in Kansas triggers a $75 noncompliance fee, forfeits carryover, and there are no extensions.
CLE exemptions: who does not have to earn credits
Start with the places that impose no general requirement at all.
Maryland has none: the Supreme Court of Maryland studied a mandatory requirement, but on April 28, 2025 it postponed consideration of both mandatory CLE and mandatory reporting of voluntary CLE until further notice.
Michigan had no mandatory CLE for attorneys as of 2026.
South Dakota's bar says it directly — CLE is not required there to keep a law license.
Washington, DC has no general mandatory requirement either, but new lawyers still face one course: the Mandatory Course on the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct and Practice, online and on demand, costing $229, to be finished within 12 months of swearing in or the lawyer faces administrative suspension.
Our research found no verified primary source on Massachusetts' current CLE requirement; we did confirm that its Supreme Judicial Court repealed the new-admittee "Practicing with Professionalism" course effective August 14, 2024.
New admittees sit in a lane of their own.
Alaska exempts lawyers from MCLE for the calendar year they are first admitted.
Alabama exempts them for the rest of the admission year but requires a 3-hour professionalism course within 12 months.
Newly admitted Pennsylvania lawyers — including those admitted on motion — are exempt for 12 to 24 months depending on their compliance group.
Ohio excuses new admittees from regular CLE for the first biennial period but requires 12 hours of New Lawyers Training.
New York replaces the regular cycle with transitional credit: 32 credits over the first two years, 16 a year, each year split into 3 ethics, 6 skills and 7 practice-management or professional-practice credits, with at least 1 cybersecurity credit across the two years.
Your membership status can end the obligation entirely.
Wyoming exempts inactive, honorary and retired members, and Vermont does not subject judicial or inactive lawyers to MCLE.
Florida automatically exempts inactive members, full-time federal judges and Florida state judges — while exemptions for active military service, undue hardship or non-residence (for lawyers not practicing Florida law) must be applied for.
Idaho's inactive members owe no MCLE, but coming back costs 10 extra credits after 1–3 years away and 30 after 3 or more.
California prorates the requirement for months spent on inactive status, and Hawaii gives lawyers returning to active status 3 months to complete 3 CLE hours, including 1 ethics hour.
Age and tenure exemptions exist too, and they do not follow one formula.
Alabama lawyers become exempt in the year they turn 65 or start receiving Social Security benefits, whichever comes first.
Colorado's exemption arrives in the compliance period in which a lawyer turns 72, Mississippi's on and after the 70th birthday, and Georgia's after 40 years of active membership without suspension or disbarment, starting the next period.
New Jersey keeps its list short: 50 or more years admitted, age 75 or over, full-time military, VISTA or Peace Corps service, or full retirement.
Louisiana rewrote its rule for 2026 — lawyers who turn 65 on or after January 1, 2026 must complete 5 hours a year until age 75, all of which may be online, while lawyers already 65 before 2026 and everyone 75 or over are exempt.
Where you live and practice can matter as much as your status.
Alabama exempts lawyers who live and keep their principal office in another mandatory-CLE state and comply with that state's CLE — reporting and the professionalism course excepted.
Tennessee non-residents who comply with CLE in another approved U.S. jurisdiction can request an annual exemption, and Louisiana exempts members living outside the state who do not practice Louisiana law.
Kansas, by contrast, does not accept other states' CLE compliance as reciprocal.
Connecticut adds an income carve-out — attorneys earning less than $1,000 for legal services in a year are exempt.
Reporting CLE credits: deadlines, portals and what happens if you miss them
The body administering CLE differs by state — and so does the kind of body it is.
Minnesota CLE is regulated by the Minnesota Board of Continuing Legal Education, Indiana's by the Indiana Commission for Continuing Legal Education appointed by the Supreme Court, and Oklahoma's by the Oklahoma Bar Association's Commission on Mandatory Continuing Legal Education.
Washington, DC has no CLE accreditation body at all — which is exactly why there are no DC reporting deadlines, carryover rules or on-demand caps to track.
Who files the paperwork differs too.
Colorado is a self-reporting state: lawyers enter their own credits at cletrack.coloradosupremecourt.com and sponsors do not report attendance.
Arizona lawyers self-certify by affidavit.
New Hampshire attorneys enter credits in the Attorney Reporting Tool via MyNHBar.
Florida lawyers report through the MyFloridaBar portal by the last day of the reporting period the Bar assigns them — miss it and the member becomes delinquent under rule 1-3.6.
Deadlines are anchored to different calendars, so your CLE reporting period is whichever window your regulator assigns.
New York ties its cycle to biennial attorney registration, filed within 30 days after the attorney's birthday every two years.
Texas runs each compliance year from the first day of the lawyer's birth month to the last day of the month before it, and gives newly licensed lawyers an initial 24-month compliance period.
California groups attorneys by last name: Group 1 (A–G) reports by March 30, 2028 for a period ending March 29, 2028, Group 2 (H–M) by March 30, 2027 after an extended 38-month cycle ending March 29, 2027, and Group 3 (N–Z) reported by March 30, 2026.
Illinois splits by last name as well — A–M report in even-numbered years, N–Z in odd ones, with credits due June 30 and the transcript reflecting compliance by July 31.
Pennsylvania permanently assigns each lawyer to one of three compliance groups with annual deadlines of April 30, August 31 or December 31.
Miss a deadline and the consequences climb.
Texas treats the lawyer's birth month as a penalty-free grace period; after that, noncompliance fees run $100 within one month, $200 within two months and $300 thereafter — before suspension.
California charges a $106 late fee, and reinstatement costs $318.
Alaska sends a notice of noncompliance with 30 days to cure; if the lawyer does not cure, the Bar petitions the Supreme Court for suspension, and reinstatement requires a reinstatement fee.
Keep your proof either way.
Connecticut attorneys must keep CLE records for 7 years, and noncompliance there leads to administrative suspension under Section 2-27B.
New Hampshire lawyers keep certificates of attendance for 2 years after the reporting year closes.
Hawaii certifies compliance on the annual bar registration form and expects records for the three most recent reporting periods.
Career information, not legal advice — CLE rules change, so confirm your current hours, categories, exemptions and deadlines with the CLE regulator for your state.