MARCH 28, 2026 – As mentioned here last month, I’m scrambling to accumulate a total of 45 hours of continuing legal education (“CLE”) credits by June 30. “Scrambling” is perhaps an over-dramatization. Thanks to a recent change in the rules, all these credits can be assembled by way of webinars viewed on demand. With proper budgeting, this means the “scramble” can be reduced to a methodical pace.
In “olden times,” before there was an internet (believe it or not), the process for gathering CLE credits was radically different. The only way to collect credits was to register for each CLE session well in advance, get your law firm to pay the sizable freight, and then, on the appointed day, you put your suit on as if you were going into the office but instead you headed to wherever the selected CLE was being conducted.
To ensure that you obtained proper credit for your troubles—and the firm’s dollars—upon arrival at the CLE, you checked in with the person at the reception desk, where you also picked up your materials, which were packed into a vinyl-clad, three-ring binder to add to your ever-growing collection crowding precious shelf space back in your office.
Depending on what emergencies were raging back at your office, during breaks you’d have to stand in line to use one of the wall-mounted phones at the conference center and wait your turn to call your secretary. While the people who’d been in line behind you were nervously checking their watches, you’d say thanks to your secretary, then follow up with calls to third parties—clients, opposing lawyers, et alia. Often those calls spilled over into the resumption of the CLE lectures. The people still in the phone queue? “SOL,” as it was said.
“On demand” webinars are a far more efficient and less costly approach to the same objective of collecting 45 CLE credits over a span of three years. Registration, of course, is all online, as are the materials, all in the form of pdf files or PowerPoint presentations, which can be downloaded in seconds, with digital shelf space being far cheaper than physical bookshelf real estate. Moreover, with “on demand” courses (vs. live webinars), you can stop, start, re-wind the presentation as need or desire requires.
With regret I confess that I’m drawing far more benefit from CLEs in the current era than I did on most occasions “back in the day.” For one thing, I’m less harried; less anxious about what surprises are unfolding in active matters at my office. I don’t worry about how I’ll catch up on a whole day’s worth of work—and billable hours. For another, in my current stage of semi-retirement, I simply feel more motivated to learn—more for the “pure joy of learning,” as the third and highest level of academic learning was described by my all-time greatest teacher, the inimitable nonagenarian, Professor Theofanis Stavrou, scholar extraordinaire of Russian History and the history of the Orthodox Church, at the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts. The CLEs I’ve been taking lately—focused on Constitutional law issues in the Age of Trump—are positively fascinating. “The Rule of Law,” is among the crown jewels in this regard.
Yesterday morning ahead of the “No Kings!” rally, I was riveted to a presentation by one Professor Raj Bhala of the University of Kansas School of Law. With a formal education pedigree longer than the combined full curriculum vitae of the 10 best educated lawyers I know, Professor Bhala gave a brilliant lecture on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure as it informs an understanding of “the rule of law.”
Professor Bhala’s insightful discourse reminded me of another adage I picked up from Professor Stavrou’s Russian history course: “It’s all in the literature,” the indefatigable historian was fond of saying, which is why plenty of classic Russian fiction was on the course reading list. Now comes a legal scholar espousing the same concept: “Wanna understand the law? It’s all in . . . Shakespeare.”
This revelation—or rather, reminder—touched a couple of raw nerves. The first concerned my growing self-consciousness regarding all the holes and gaps in my education. At nearly 72, with attainment of the age of 80 pushing the envelope on my actuarial table, how in the world do I address those holes and gaps before I must hand in my bluebook when the exam proctor calls, “Time’s up!”? More specifically, as a non-English major—by either formal standards or informal assessment—how do I gain meaningful access to the plays of the Bard?[1]
Aha! I call on the guidance of . . . an English major (Erik Hansen – see yesterday’s post), who advises, “First and foremost, get a handle on a highly condensed synopsis of the play. Learn enough to explain it in as few as 10 words.” This approach appeals to me. I’ll try it. In fact, I did try it.
In the span of 10 seconds, I found the Measure for Measure on the Folger Shakespeare Library site and plunged into the play. Thanks to Professor Bhala, I had a good understanding of the plot and dramatis personae. Now I’m grappling with the language, but I’m discovering that pace and patience are key.
For the rank amateur, Shakespearean or Elizabethan English is like the meat of a lobster claw: first you have to crack open the shell—applying the lobster cracker with controlled strength to keep the claw meat intact (overwhelming force will mangle the flesh—that of your hand, as well as that of the lobster’s); then you use the lobster pick or fork to tease the meat from the shell and dip it gracefully (but abundantly) in the elegant butter warmer, and without too much additional fuss, you transfer the morsel to your ready but hidden tongue. Once the subject of your efforts is safely inside your mouth, you gently close your lips, then your eyes, and slowly activate your jaws, giving your tastebuds ample time to absorb the flavor. All the while, you savor the fullness of the good life—before moving on to the second claw, with tail, the legs and the meat and green tomalley in the carapace all to follow.
In other words, you turn impenetrable Shakespeare into a gourmet feast. You set aside your Minnesota origins and join your old college friends in Maine. You treat the Bard as if he were a fresh-baked lobster served with a sprig of parsley and a lemon quarter on a plate of Wedgwood bone china next to other finery on a table covered with pure Egyptian linen.
After the feast, you join your friends on the veranda with its sweeping view of the sea, and as everyone sips a digestif, you steer the conversation to what the ageless Bard writing four centuries ago had to say about the world as we find it today.
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Apart from Hamlet, which, along with thousands of other high school students (at least of the late 60s and early 70s), manage to read, apprehend and comprehend without suffering any permanent brain damage—at least that I could reasonably attribute to the experience.
