Looking for current continuing professional development materials online? Well, you’re in luck! AccessCLE is a database that hosts LSO CPD program materials from 2004 onwards. This free resource lets you browse for programs and papers by area of law and year, or conduct full-text searches by keyword. This post is meant to map our readers on navigating AccessCLE.
Browse Collections
When browsing the collections on AccessCLE, users have a few topics to choose from:
After clicking into any one of the topics, you will be prompted to choose the year for which you would like to browse material. Let’s use the 2021 programs for Civil Litigation as an example.
After following the pathway Civil Litigation > 2021, we can see a list of all the LSO CPD programs presented in 2021 dealing with the topic of civil litigation:
Each item in this list represents the title of a CPD program. Looking at the program Remote Hearings: Practical Considerations, we can see from the bracketed info to the right that there are 3 articles that comprise this program. After clicking the link to the program, we are presented with a list of the program’s associated articles:
To access an article, click the PDF icon to the right of the record indicated above. You can also access the PDF from the item’s full record, which is accessible by clicking its hyperlinked title:
Note that the program title to which the article belongs is highlighted in the “CLE Program Title” field in the full record, and also contained in the metadata near the top of the page in both the full and summary records when browsing.
Search Collections
Don’t know which CPD program or article houses the material you need? No problem! You can also perform full text searches on AccessCLE. Here’s an example on finding materials on COVID-19 and employment law:
Using the “Contains” search option retrieves all records that have the word/s or phrase anywhere in the record or in the related full-text article. “Exact” retrieves only records that have the word/s or phrase in exact word order in the record or in the related full-text article (thus replacing quotation marks), and “Starts with” retrieves only records that contain metadata starting with the word/s or phrase. For more information on AccesscLE search options, like truncation and proximity connectors, be sure to click the “Help” link found at the top right in the AccessCLE banner.
Moving forward with our search, here are a few articles that were summoned:
If we wanted to view the first article listed, “Can Employers Require Employees Vaccinate against Covid-19?”, all we need do is click the PDF icon found towards the right of the item’s record. But to learn more about the article itself, like the CPD program to which it belongs, click the hyperlinked title to navigate to the item’s full record.
This article belongs to the CPD program Six-Minute Employment Lawyer 2021.
Remember, searches (as oppose to browsing) on AccessCLE will summon result lists comprised of CPD article titles rather than program titles. So, once you have summoned your results list with your search term(s), you will need to click into the article title and reference the full record in order to identify its associated CPD program title.
If you’d like to search (rather than browse) for all articles from a particular CPD program, enter the title using the “exact” search option (provided you enter the title exactly without any variation), or use the Advanced Search function with the “Metadata Only” field:
Need help navigating AccessCLE? Just ask us! And remember that these and other CPD programs not produced by the Law Society can be found by searching InfoLocate. Look to the newly created LibGuide “Research 101: How to Use InfoLocate” for detailed instructions on how to use InfoLocate.
Know How 