2022 Bar examiners, personnel exempted from MCLE — SC

Bar examiners and personnel for this year are exempted from the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE), the Supreme Court said in a resolution released Thursday.

Based on Bar Bulletin No. 5, the Court En Banc granted the MCLE exemption under Rule 7, Section 3 of Bar Matter No. 850 to the Bar takers and personnel who will be rendering services for the upcoming Bar exams. 

In a resolution dated August 2, 2022, the SC said Bar examiners are exempt for one compliance period, and members of the Office of the Bar Examinations Chairperson are exempt for one compliance period. 

Other Bar personnel are exempt for one compliance period if they render actual service for four Bar Examination days or partial credit of nine units for each Bar Examination day that they render actual service.

“The MCLE exemption granted under the Resolution may be applied to any compliance period and is subject to the administrative filing of the attestation of exemption under the MCLE procedures,” the high court said.

MCLE is required of members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) to “ensure that throughout their career, they keep abreast with law and jurisprudence, maintain the ethics of the profession and enhance the standards of the practice of law.”

Moreover, the SC said that the IBP has waived, by way of incentive, the following requirements for compliance with its Lifetime Membership for lawyers who render volunteer service as Bar personnel during the 2022 Bar exams:

• Rendition of 120 hours of legal aid service
• Attendance to one regional or national convention of the IBP

Instead of these requirements, a certification of such service attested to by the 2022 Bar Examinations Chairperson must be submitted to the IBP as part of the documents in support of the lawyer’s application for Lifetime Membership.

Judiciary employees and lawyers outside the judiciary who wish to serve as local Bar personnel may submit their applications until August 22.

The Bar exams will be conducted in November in 14 local testing centers nationwide. It will be both digitalized and localized in modality. —VBL, GMA News