The Public Defenders Association of Iowa 

Public Defender Criminal Law Seminar

  The Public Defenders Association of Iowa   

Important Notification Regarding Crediting Issues for Substituted Webinars

As you know, the Public Defenders Association of Iowa cancelled its 2020 annual criminal law seminar due to COVID-19.  As an alternative, the host office for the 2020 seminar obtained Iowa CLE credit for webinars sponsored by the National Association for Public Defense.  These webinars were approved for 15.5 hours of credit including two hours of ethics credit.  Instead of paying dues to the PDAI, attorneys were encouraged to join the NAPD at the $30 individual rate to get access to these webinars for free.  Some of the webinars dated back to 2014.  At the time the webinars were approved for Iowa credit, no concerns were raised with the host office regarding the age of the webinars.  


In the summer, we heard from an attorney who had problems adding certain NAPD webinars to their CLE transcript.  We asked attorneys to let us know if they had any problems obtaining credit for the webinars to try to assess the extent of the problem.  Based on the very few responses we received, it appeared that attorneys were not permitted to add to their CLE transcripts any webinars that predated their date of admission.  That is a CLE Commission rule that the PDAI cannot work around, which is one reason why we tried to obtain credit for and publicize other live CLEs as they came up.

We have been in communication with the CLE office and it appears that the problem is much broader than we initially thought.  The CLE office informed us that even though a webinar is “approved” for Iowa credit, that does not necessarily mean it will count toward an attorney’s 2020 CLE requirements.  Older webinars may be “approved” so that inactive attorneys can use webinars that were produced during their period of inactivity to reactivate their licenses.  That does not mean currently active attorneys can use those same webinars for their 2020 annual report. 

To cut to the chase:  There is no problem with any 2019 or 2020 webinars that have been approved – they may count toward the annual requirement with no additional certification.  If a webinar pre-dates 2019, however, there needs to be an additional certification from the presenter that the information is still “current and timely” in order for an attorney to count it as credit on their 2020 annual report.  The fact that an attorney can have these older webinars “accepted” onto their CLE transcript does not mean they will count toward the annual requirement.  Again, this was not mentioned to the host office when they obtained approval for the webinars.

As of right now, it appears that 11.25 hours of the NAPD webinars for which the PDAI had obtained approval currently do not qualify for 2020 credit.  We have contacted the NAPD for help in getting the necessary certification from the presenters that these webinars are still current and timely.  We would prefer that attorneys who have watched these webinars be able to get credit for them and not have to seek out new CLEs.  The CLE office has indicated its willingness to work with us on rectifying the situation.  We will do our best to keep you updated as to the status of these webinars.

In the meantime, we have obtained Iowa CLE credit approval for another 13.5 hours of NAPD webinars.  These are all 2019 and 2020 on-demand webinars, so there is no need for any additional certification.  A list of these webinars with their activity numbers can be found at the end of this notification.  You will see only one hour has been approved for ethics credit.  We hope to publicize additional opportunities for obtaining ethics credit.  The Federal Defender is planning to offer a one-hour ethics webinar at noon on September 29, with a topic to be determined.

We apologize for any difficulties and frustration this has caused.  We wrongly assumed we had taken all the appropriate steps when the host office obtained Iowa approval for the webinars.  We are doing the best we can to obtain the necessary certifications and offer alternatives.  And we wanted to let attorneys know of the complication sooner rather than later.

PDAI Treasurer Theresa Wilson has been spearheading the efforts to address the problems with the pre-2019 NAPD webinars.  If you have any questions regarding this subject, please feel free to contact her directly at [email protected]

Looking forward, the PDAI intends to offer a virtual live conference for 2021.  The host offices are already in the planning stages and we hope to have an excellent lineup of presenters.  Details will follow as they become available.

2019-2020 NAPD Webinars Recently Approved For Iowa Credit

Access by logging in to the NAPD website at https://www.publicdefenders.us/  and going to MyGideon archived webinars.


 | Program Name: | Pretrial Release: Risk Assessments and Litigation
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 07/23/2019
| End Date: | 07/23/2019
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354568

 

 | Program Name: | Bail Litigation in New Jersey
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 03/12/2019
| End Date: | 03/12/2019
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354524

 

 | Program Name: | Relevance, Prejudice, and Crawford
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 08/18/2020
| End Date: | 08/18/2020
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354569

 

 | Program Name: | The Jury Selection Toolbox
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 08/05/2020
| End Date: | 08/05/2020
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354570

 

 | Program Name: | Social Media Toolkit for Public Defebse
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 10/31/2019
| End Date: | 10/31/2019
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Activity Number: | 354586

 

 | Program Name: | Batson (Defending the Constitutional Right to a Representative Jury)
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 03/28/2019
| End Date: | 03/28/2019
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354525

 

 | Program Name: | Fighting Historical Cell Site Location Testimony
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 02/28/2020
| End Date: | 02/28/2020
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.5
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354571


| Program Name: | Head Trauma
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 07/29/2020
| End Date: | 07/29/2020
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.25
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354572

 

 | Program Name: | Reading Medical Records
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 07/29/2020
| End Date: | 07/29/2020
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.5
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354587

 

 | Program Name: | Cell Tower Evidence
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 08/28/2019
| End Date: | 08/28/2019
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354588

 

 | Program Name: | DNA Dystopia
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 03/05/2019
| End Date: | 03/05/2019
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.25
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354589

 

 | Program Name: | The ABC's of DNA Defense
| Sponsor: | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR PUBLIC DEFENSE
| Start Date: | 01/09/2019
| End Date: | 01/09/2019
| City: | Des Moines
| Class Type: | Audio + Video on Demand
| Total CLE Hours Approved: | 1.0
| Ethics Hours Approved: | 0.0
| Activity Number: | 354574

2020 Seminar Cancelled!!!

2019 Seminar Sponsors