What Are the CLE Requirements for Arkansas Attorneys?

Arkansas lawyers must complete 12 CLE hours each reporting year, and 1 of those hours must be in ethics.

The requirement sits in Rule 3(a) of the Arkansas Rules for Minimum Continuing Legal Education, and it is annual: it is measured by reporting year, which runs July 1 through June 30.

The Arkansas CLE Board measures an attorney's year against that total on its own compliance forms — its 2026 deficiency acknowledgment describes the shortfall as failing to acquire "the requisite twelve (12) hours of continuing legal education, including one (1) ethics hour due for the year ending June 30, 2026."

Ethics is the specialty credit Arkansas's requirement names: the 12 annual hours must include 1 ethics hour.

The requirement our research documented breaks out no credit category beyond ethics.

We cannot tell you that Arkansas has none, though — the rule text that would list any further credit categories was not readable in the research for this page — so treat any additional credit requirement as unconfirmed rather than nonexistent.

Check the current credit categories with the Arkansas CLE Board before you plan a reporting year around one.

The Arkansas CLE reporting year runs July 1 through June 30, and the deadline the board's deficiency process works from is June 30, the year's end.

Nonresident Arkansas lawyers have a distinct reporting step our research did document: they file a Nonresident Certification Form with a $25 fee, due October 31, 2026 for the 2025–26 reporting year.

Our research did not establish the routine reporting method or filing date for attorneys who live and practice in Arkansas — the documents we read cover the deficiency process and the nonresident certification, not the annual report itself — so confirm how and when to report with the Arkansas CLE Board.

The closest thing to a newly-admitted rule our research found is the New Attorney Course: the Arkansas judiciary's CLE rules page lists an Administrative Order #17 by that name.

The same sources confirm only the order's title — its hour requirement, format and deadline were not in anything our research could read, so we cannot say what it demands of a new admittee.

A newly admitted Arkansas attorney should treat the course's details as unconfirmed and ask the Arkansas CLE Board what applies in the first years after admission.

Our research cannot answer this for Arkansas.

Any cap on on-demand, recorded or self-study hours would sit in the Arkansas Rules for Minimum Continuing Legal Education, and that rule text was not readable in the research for this page — the judiciary's rules library publishes it in a format the research could not save as text.

Before you count on-demand hours toward the 12, ask the Arkansas CLE Board what the current rule allows.

Arkansas's age exemption is documented: lawyers aged 70 or older who were compliant with the previous reporting period are exempt from CLE hours, and the Arkansas CLE Board's own 2026 Acknowledgment of Deficiency form records it.

Carryover is a different story.

Whether excess hours roll from one reporting year into the next would be settled in that same rule text our research could not read, so we cannot confirm that any carryover exists in Arkansas.

Treat carryover as unconfirmed and ask the Arkansas CLE Board before you bank extra hours.

An Arkansas lawyer who misses the June 30 deadline has a defined cure path: sign the board's Acknowledgement of Deficiency and pay a $75 fee, which extends the cure deadline to December 1 — December 1, 2026 on the board's 2026 form.

The form says signing it and paying the fee is required to avoid suspension of the attorney's license; our research did not establish what follows if the deficiency is still uncured after December 1.

The 2026 form covers the year ending June 30, 2026; confirm the current form, fee and date with the Arkansas CLE Board before relying on this timeline.