The Missouri Bar may designate a CLE sponsor as an “accredited sponsor” if the sponsor has substantial recent experience in offering continuing legal education or a demonstrable ability to organize and effectively present continuing legal education programs and activities.

Programs submitted by accredited sponsors receive automatic accreditation without undergoing a review and approval process. Therefore, it is imperative that the information entered is thorough and correct. Programs, seminars, or activities must include at least 50 minutes of instruction directly contributing to the professional competency of lawyers or judges. CLE credit hours need to be reported in terms of a 50-minute hour, determined by dividing the total minutes of instruction by 50 and rounding up or down to the nearest (.1) of an hour. Accredited sponsors routinely entering information incorrectly will risk loss of the accredited sponsor status.

Pursuant to Rules 15.05(a)(1) and 15.05(a)(2), ethics credit may be requested for programs that include professionalism, substance abuse, mental health, legal or judicial ethics, malpractice prevention, and/or elimination of bias. Requests for ethics credit in the area of elimination of bias must be devoted exclusively to explicit or implicit bias, diversity, inclusion, or cultural competency.

Submission of Programs by Accredited Sponsors: Accredited sponsors may submit programs individually using the process described on "Sponsors’ Guide to Online System." In addition, a Bulk Upload process is available to accredited sponsors, enabling those who provide a large volume of programs to upload multiple programs for accreditation at one time. Using this method, programs are entered into an Excel spreadsheet template provided on the website and uploaded into the online system. The system will review the submissions for errors and identify any corrections that are needed prior to saving the program information.

Timely Submission of Programs: Regulation 15.04.4(a) provides that an accredited sponsor shall file a report with The Missouri Bar on an annual basis by July 31 of each year listing all accredited programs conducted by the sponsor during the preceding year. Please note that in order for an attendee to search for and report a program from an accredited sponsor, the sponsor must have entered the program into the online system.

If an accredited sponsor waits until July 31 to enter all accredited programs into the system, attendees will be required to independently apply for accreditation of the program in order to be able to report attendance. Accredited sponsors will save attendees time and effort by submitting programs for application as they occur throughout the year.

Submission of Accredited Sponsor Annual Program Report: Each accredited sponsor must file a report with The Missouri Bar that lists all accredited programs, seminars, and activities conducted by the sponsor during the preceding reporting year and the number of credit hours for each program, seminar, or activity. The report shall indicate the number of credit hours of each program, seminar, or activity designated that satisfy the ethics and elimination of bias requirements contained in Rule 15.05(a)(1) and (2). Accredited Sponsor Annual Program Reports must be filed on or before July 31 of each year.

The Missouri Bar’s online MCLE platform provides accredited sponsors a comprehensive mechanism for submitting programming and reviewing programming throughout the year. The online annual report can be accessed on the program sponsor page by clicking on the “Request Program Accreditation or Search for Existing Programs” link and then the “Submit Annual Report” button located at the top of the page.

Here accredited sponsors will find a list of all programs submitted and held during the preceding compliance year (July 1 – June 30). Once the list has been reviewed for completeness and accuracy, the annual report is filed by checking the attestation and clicking the “Submit” button. If there are inaccuracies found in the program information, changes must be made by contacting the MCLE Department at MCLEProgram@mobar.org prior to the submission of the report. Failure to submit an annual report may result in the loss of an organization’s status as a Missouri accredited sponsor.

Sponsors Seeking Accredited Sponsor Status: Pursuant to Rule 15.04(a), The Missouri Bar may designate a CLE sponsor as an “accredited sponsor” if the sponsor has substantial recent experience in offering continuing legal education or a demonstrable ability to organize and effectively present continuing legal education programs and activities.

The application to become an accredited sponsor can be found here.