Building a Learning Ecosystem – Going
Beyond the CLE Program and Developing a Learning Culture
Presented By:
Jeanne Heaton Illinois State Bar Association
Springfield, IL
Tim Slating Illinois State Bar Association
Springfield, IL
Presented at:
ACLEA 55th Annual Meeting July 27, 2019
Chicago, Illinois
Jeanne Heaton Illinois State Bar Association
Springfield, IL
Jeanne has served as the Director of Continuing Legal Education for the Illinois State Bar Association since November 2006. Jeanne has have been active in ACLEA since 2006, serving as President in 2017-18 after serving as President Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, and Director on the ACLEA Executive Committee. She was a member of the 2015 ACLEA Chicago Annual Meeting planning committee. Previously she served as MCLE Committee Co-Chair 2012- 2014; Executive Leadership SIG Co-Chair, 2008–2010; and as a member of the 2009 planning committee for the ACLEA Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City. She has participated as a panelist in presentations at ACLEA meetings including: "Leading Change and Managing Professionals" Montreal 2017 Annual Mtg., "Beyond the Talking Head: Tinkering with Traditional CLE Presentation Formats" Austin 2014 ACLEA Midyear Mtg.; “Recruiting, Mentoring & Training New Volunteers” New Orleans 2012 ACLEA Midyear Mtg.; and "Online CLE Communities" San Francisco 2011 ACLEA Mid-year Mtg. During her tenure as Director of CLE for the ISBA, the association has been the recipient of seven of ACLEA’s Best Awards, including four for Public Interest and three for Programming. Jeanne also represents the ISBA on the CLE Advisory Committee to the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism.
Before entering the world of CLE, Jeanne worked as an environmental lawyer. She earned her JD degree from Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington and her undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Illinois-Champaign. Go Illini! She enjoys spending her free time with her 4 children and 4 grandchildren.
Tim Slating Illinois State Bar Association
Springfield, IL Tim Slating is the Assistant Executive Director for Communications at the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA). He has been a member of ACLEA since joining the ISBA in 2013. Tim currently serves as a member of the ACLEA Executive Committee, Chair of the State & Provincial SIG, and Chair of the Communications Committee. He previously served on the Planning Committees for both the 2017 Midyear Meeting in Nashville and the 2017 Annual Meeting in Montreal. Tim is also a frequent speaker for the publications portion of ACLEA’s CLE Bootcamp seminars.
At the ISBA, Tim oversees all publications (ISBA Books, The Illinois Bar Journal, E-Clips, the Illinois Lawyer Now blog, and section newsletters), ISBA marketing, advertising sales, media relations, social media, the ISBA website, IllinoisBarDocs (automated document assembly system), IllinoisLawyerFinder (online member directory), and PracticeHQ (legal tech microsite).
Tim received his J.D. degree from the University of Illinois College of Law, where he worked as a researcher and adjunct professor for three years after his graduation. He received his B.A. with a major in sociology from Wayne State University. He currently lives in Springfield, IL with his wife Kara, daughter Johanna, and Bear, a one-year-old English Shepherd who is the newest addition to the family.
Building a Learning
Ecosystem:
The ISBA’s Practice HQ
Jeanne B. Heaton – Director of CLE
Timothy A. Slating – Assistant Executive Director,
Communications
Illinois State Bar Association
The Task
In 2016, ISBA leadership tasked staff with
improving the way we deliver law practice
management (LPM) and legal technology
resources to members
We had a ton of resources (CLEs, bar journal
articles, newsletter articles), but they were
scattered across website and not organized as
well as they could be
Our standing committees on legal tech and law
practice management had proved to not be the
“silver bullets”
The Initial Idea
Staff was originally of the opinion that we had
two options:
1. Task an existing staff member with aggregating
and managing all our existing content, and
developing new content; or
2. Hire a new staff member with the primary
responsibility to do all of this
The New Idea!
At the 2016 ACLEA Annual Meeting, I
discussed our conundrum with Barron Henley
from Affinity Consulting Group
Barron’s eyes lit up and he got really excited
Barron had an idea for how to accomplish our
goals for a lower cost than hiring a dedicated
staff member
The initial seed for Practice HQ was sewn
Practice HQ
Practice HQ (www.isba.org/practicehq) is a
microsite within the ISBA website that is
completely dedicated to LPM and legal tech
resources
It includes original ISBA content and content
licensed from Affinity Consulting Group (ACG)
The organization, maintenance, and updating of
the content is managed by staff at ACG
All content is initially organized around the
lifecycle of a typical law practice
Practice HQ
Each of the five main areas of Practice HQ
include relevant:
Whitepapers
Checklists
Products and Services
Training videos
ISBA CLE offerings
Ethics resources
Articles (from bar journal, blogs, newsletters,
etc.)
Practice HQ
All the main areas of Practice HQ include the
same categories of content
Except for the “Manage” area, which includes
ten sub-areas
Each sub-area includes the same categories of
content that the other main area landing pages
include
Practice HQ
In addition to the five main areas, Practice HQ
also includes stand-alone, aggregation pages
for:
Checklists
Products and services
Videos
Practice HQ
In order to provide the “human” element that
some bars offer with a staff LPM Adviser, we
recently launched the Ask an Expert! feature
ISBA members now have the ability to:
Email LPM and legal tech questions to reps at
ACG and get a completely free answer emailed to
them within two business days; and/or
Schedule a free, one-on-one, remote consultation
with an expert from ACG
Thanks!
Jeanne B. Heaton, J.D.
Director of CLE
Illinois State Bar Association
Timothy A. Slating, J.D.
Assistant Executive Director, Communications
Illinois State Bar Association