Pennsylvania CLE Requirements: Hours, Reporting, and Deadlines

Pennsylvania CLE requirements obligate every active attorney to complete 12 credit hours of continuing legal education each compliance year, and at least two of those hours must cover ethics, professionalism, or substance abuse as it relates to legal practice.¹ Your deadline depends on which of three compliance groups you were assigned to when you were admitted. Miss it, and late fees start at $100 and escalate toward administrative suspension.

Your Compliance Group Sets Your Deadline

Pennsylvania permanently assigns every attorney to one of three compliance groups, chosen randomly by attorney ID. The group fixes both your annual reporting deadline and the 12-month window during which you earn credits:²

Group 1: May 1 through April 30, deadline April 30.
Group 2: September 1 through August 31, deadline August 31.
Group 3: January 1 through December 31, deadline December 31.

Your group does not change if you move, change firms, or take time away from practice. It stays with you for your entire Pennsylvania career.

How the 12 Hours Break Down

Two hours must be ethics; the remaining ten can be substantive law such as civil procedure, evidence, or estate planning. Extra ethics credits beyond the two-hour minimum count toward the substantive portion, so you could satisfy the full 12-hour requirement with ethics courses alone.² Substantive credits never substitute for the ethics minimum.

There is also a cap on how you earn the hours. No more than six credits per year can come from asynchronous, pre-recorded programs.³ The other six must come from live-online (synchronous) courses or traditional classroom instruction. A live webinar you attend in real time counts as live; a recording you watch on your own schedule falls into the capped category. Attorneys who load up on pre-recorded webinars in the final week before a deadline routinely discover that half those credits won’t count.

Alternative Ways to Earn Credit

Pro bono work counts. You earn one CLE credit for every five hours of pro bono legal service performed through an accredited provider, capped at three credits per compliance year, meaning 15 qualifying hours yields the full three credits.⁴ The accredited provider reports the service; you cannot self-report.

Teaching CLE courses also counts. Presenters earn two hours of credit for each hour of presentation, provided they prepared written materials. Repeat presentations of the same course earn credit only for the presentation time itself.⁵ The $1.50 per credit hour administrative fee applies to teaching credits.⁶

Carrying Credits Forward

If you earn more than 12 credits in a compliance year, the surplus rolls forward for two succeeding compliance years, and you can bank up to 24 excess credits across that window.⁷ Only credits earned beyond what you needed for the current year qualify for carryover. Used deliberately, this gives you real breathing room during busy stretches of practice.

Newly Admitted Attorneys

If you just passed the bar or were admitted on motion, your first CLE obligation is deferred. New admittees are exempt from the standard requirement for at least 12 and up to 24 months after admission, depending on which compliance group they fall into.²

Before that first deadline arrives, you must complete Bridge the Gap, a four-hour ethics course for new practitioners offered through accredited CLE providers. Those four ethics credits count toward your first compliance period’s 12-hour total.⁸

Reporting Credits and the Administrative Fee

Accredited providers generally report your attendance directly to the CLE Board. Log into the PACLE online portal periodically to confirm the credits appear on your transcript. If a course is missing, contact the provider; the portal is the official record, and discovering a gap on deadline day is how attorneys end up paying late fees for courses they actually took.

The Board charges $1.50 per credit hour as an administrative fee.⁶ Most providers fold this into tuition and remit it for you. When they don’t, you are responsible, and unpaid fees keep the credits from registering as complete, which can push you into noncompliance even though you sat through the course. Balances can be paid through the portal.

What Happens if You Miss the Deadline

Enforcement follows a structured escalation:

The Board sends a written notice of noncompliance identifying what you are missing, and a $100 late fee is assessed immediately.²
You have 60 days from that notice to complete the missing credits and pay the fee.⁹
If the issue isn’t resolved within 90 days of the initial notice, a second $100 late fee is assessed.²
If you still haven’t complied, the Board reports the noncompliance to the Supreme Court and recommends administrative suspension.⁹

Administrative suspension means you cannot legally practice law. The Board may also assess the costs of any hearing held during the process, including the hearing officer’s compensation. Attorneys who believe they had reasonable cause for noncompliance can request a hearing; if the Board disagrees, they get one final 60-day window before the suspension recommendation proceeds.

Reinstatement After Suspension

Suspended three years or less: file a change-in-status form with the Attorney Registration Office, submit proof of compliance, and pay all outstanding fees.¹⁰ Suspended more than three years: you must complete 36 hours of CLE (12 of which must be ethics) within the 12 months before filing your reinstatement petition, on top of any other reinstatement requirements. The longer the suspension runs, the more it costs to come back.

Exemptions, Deferrals, and Waivers

Not every licensed Pennsylvania attorney owes 12 credits a year. Several categories can defer or avoid the requirement:²

Judges whose positions prohibit them from practicing law are exempt for the duration of their service on the bench.
Attorneys on active military duty stationed outside Pennsylvania can have their CLE requirements waived for any compliance period during deployment, upon written request.
Attorneys who place their license on voluntary inactive status before the current year’s deadline have their requirement deferred. Credits become due again on reactivation.
Attorneys who neither practice law nor live in Pennsylvania can apply for a non-resident active deferral.

Beyond those categories, the Board has authority to grant a waiver of up to one year for attorneys facing undue hardship or circumstances beyond their control that make compliance impossible, evaluated case by case and extendable on application.¹¹ Waivers are rare. The Board’s stated position is that no exceptions exist “except in the limited instances described in the Regulations,” so don’t count on one unless your circumstances are truly extraordinary.

1
Pennsylvania Code. 204 Pennsylvania Code Rule 105 – Continuing Legal Education Requirement
2
Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board. Frequently Asked Questions
3
Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board. Distance Learning Information
4
Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board. Pro Bono Program
5
Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board. CLE Teaching Credit Activity Form
6
Pennsylvania Code. 204 Pennsylvania Code Section 18 – Board Fee Schedule
7
Pennsylvania Code. 204 Pennsylvania Code Rule 108 – Credit for Continuing Legal Education Courses and Activity
8
Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board. Bridge the Gap
9
Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board. Pennsylvania Rules for Continuing Legal Education – Rule 111
10
The Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The Reinstatement Process
11
Legal Information Institute. 204 Pennsylvania Code Section 6 – Waivers, Extensions and Deferrals