New Zealand Lawyers CPD: The CPDPR, Per-Activity Reflection and Approved Self-Audit Status

New Zealand's CPD rules do something no other scheme in this library does: they let a law firm apply to audit itself. They also require a written reflection on every single activity, and they give lawyers five working days after the year ends to declare compliance. Ten hours is the easy part.

This guide works through the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Ongoing Legal Education—Continuing Professional Development) Rules 2013 (SR 2013/320), read from the reprint as at 1 July 2021. The Rules were made by the New Zealand Law Society on 4 July 2013 and came into force on 1 October 2013.

Two obligations, not one

Rule 4.1 splits the requirement. A lawyer must (a) develop and maintain a written CPD plan and record — the CPDPR — in accordance with rule 5, and (b) undertake the required hours under rule 6, including any mandatory component the Law Society requires.

The plan is a requirement in its own right. A lawyer who completes fifteen hours of excellent training and keeps no CPDPR has breached rule 4.1(a) regardless.

Rule 3.1(i) sets the yearly period as 1 April to 31 March.

Ten hours — and no reduction for part-time

Rule 6.1(a) requires a minimum of ten hours of activities each yearly period for a lawyer providing regulated services "in either a full-time or part-time capacity". Part-time practice earns no reduction, which puts New Zealand alongside Scotland and against Australia on that question.

What does reduce the requirement is months out of practice. Rule 6.1(b) and Schedule 1 set a table by months providing regulated services during the year:

• 12, 11 or 10 months — 10 hours
• 9 months — 9 hours, and so on down
• 1 month — 1 hour

Periods are rounded up or down to the nearest full month. Note the top of that table: two months out still leaves the full ten hours.

Rule 6.2 permits a carry-forward of up to five hours of excess into the next yearly period, recorded in that year's CPDPR — but not where the excess results from a deferment granted under rule 7.4. Rule 6.3 confirms hours can only be attributed to one yearly period.

What counts as an activity

Rule 3.1(b), as replaced on 1 July 2021, sets five tests. Learning must be:

• structured with identifiable aims and with outcomes relevant to the lawyer's identified learning needs as contained in the lawyer's CPDPR
• providing an opportunity for interaction and feedback
• verifiable by documentation
• not part of a lawyer's usual day-to-day work
• and includes any mandatory component required by the Law Society

The first test is the one that makes the plan load-bearing. An activity only qualifies if its outcomes are relevant to learning needs already identified in the CPDPR. A lawyer who attends a well-run seminar that bears no relation to their recorded learning needs has arguably not completed a qualifying activity at all. That is a strong argument for writing the plan at the start of the year rather than the end.

The fourth test excludes learning by doing, however valuable. And the Rules set no caps by activity type — no limit on private study, writing, presenting or recorded learning — because the five tests do the filtering instead.

The CPDPR: five contents, and a reflection on each activity

Rule 5.1 requires the CPDPR of a lawyer providing regulated services for all or part of a year to include:

• (a) a description of the lawyer's current learning needs
• (b) a description of the proposed actions to meet those needs
• (c) a description and details of the activities undertaken, including (i) a record of the hours involved in each activity, (ii) a reflection on each activity, and (iii) documentation verifying attendance at each activity
• (d) a statement of the number of hours required within each yearly period, per rule 6 or as modified under rule 7.4
• (e) a record of any period greater than three months during which the lawyer did not provide regulated services

Rule 5.1(c)(ii) is the provision that separates this scheme from an attendance log. A reflection is required per activity, not once a year — ten activities means ten reflections. And 5.1(c)(iii) requires attendance documentation for each one, which is why "verifiable by documentation" in the activity definition is not decorative.

Rule 5.2 is permissive for lawyers not providing regulated services: they may include the matters in 5.1(a) to (c).

Rule 5.3 requires a CPDPR to be retained for 3 years.

Five working days to declare

Rule 7.1 requires a lawyer to give the Law Society a declaration of compliance, in the prescribed form, not later than five working days after the close of the immediately preceding yearly period. Rule 7.2 makes anything received later a late declaration.

Five working days after 31 March is the tightest declaration deadline of any scheme covered in this library — Ontario allows until 31 March of the following year to cure a default, and the Costs Lawyer Standards Board ties its declaration to a 30 November renewal. In New Zealand the year ends and the declaration is due almost immediately.

Rule 7.3 does allow a late declaration by a lawyer who completes the requirements after the close of the year, so completing late is better than not declaring. And rule 7.4 lets the Law Society, on application, allow a lawyer to defer all or part of the requirements to a subsequent yearly period — but rule 7.5 limits that to cases where the Society is satisfied that exceptional circumstances prevented completion.

Audit: any time, and the firm can be asked to open third-party records

Rule 8.1 allows the Law Society to audit a lawyer at any time to verify compliance. There is no sampling percentage and no cycle — it is an open power.

Rule 8.2 requires the lawyer, on request, to permit the audit, to produce the CPDPR, and — the provision worth noting — to authorise a third party to provide any documentation associated with the CPDPR. So the Society can go to the training provider directly for attendance records. Rule 8.3 requires the Society to notify the lawyer of the results.

Approved self-audit status: the provision for employers

Rule 9 is the most employer-relevant part of these Rules and has no equivalent elsewhere in this library. An organisation — defined in rule 3.1(g) to include an incorporated law firm, lawyers practising on own account who employ other lawyers, a group of lawyers entitled to practise on own account, or a group of lawyers employed by the same non-lawyer employer — may apply for approved self-audit status.

Eligibility under rule 9.2 has two limbs. The organisation must satisfy the Law Society that it:

• has effective policies and procedures in place for ensuring all lawyers in the organisation comply with the Rules; and
• appoints a lawyer "of sufficient seniority and standing", approved by the Law Society, as a CPD officer to monitor compliance

Rule 9.3 requires the organisation to have an approved CPD officer and suitable arrangements for them to discharge their duties at all times. Rule 9.4 requires the CPD officer, from time to time, to review and monitor compliance in accordance with the organisation's policies and procedures, and to maintain and keep those policies under review.

Self-audit status does not buy immunity. Rule 9.5 preserves the Law Society's power to audit a self-auditing organisation at any time.

Note the implication for in-house teams: because rule 3.1(g) includes a group of lawyers employed by the same non-lawyer employer, an in-house legal team can be an "organisation" for these purposes and can seek self-audit status. That is unusual recognition of in-house practice in a CPD rule.

Three things to check

First, whether your lawyers' CPDPRs contain a reflection on each activity and attendance documentation for each. An hours total with a single annual reflection does not meet rule 5.1(c).

Second, whether the plan was written before the training, since rule 3.1(b) ties qualifying activity to learning needs already identified in the CPDPR.

Third, whether anyone has been promised a part-time reduction. Rule 6.1(a) does not provide one; only months out of practice reduce the total.

If you run a firm or an in-house team of any size in New Zealand, rule 9 is worth a serious look — appointing an approved CPD officer and documenting the policies converts an individual compliance risk into a managed process. Against this, Ontario's monthly accrual with accredited professionalism hours and Australia's ten units across four mandatory fields are different machines again. Structured CPD programmes only help here if they produce the per-activity reflection and verification the Rules actually demand.

Sources and limits: written from the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Ongoing Legal Education—Continuing Professional Development) Rules 2013 (SR 2013/320), reprint as at 1 July 2021, read in October 2026. Amendments after that reprint were not checked, and the New Zealand Law Society's own guidance, prescribed declaration form and any mandatory component it has set under rules 3.1(b) and 4.1(b) were not read — that mandatory component is set administratively rather than in the Rules, so confirm it with the Society. Rules 10 and 11, on disclosure of audit information and transitional carry-forward, are not covered. General information about published rules, not legal advice.