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

jheaton@isba.org

Timothy A. Slating, J.D.

Assistant Executive Director, Communications

Illinois State Bar Association

tslating@isba.org