Reflective Practice

The Law Society’s Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Tool allows lawyers to describe learning activities they will carry out to enhance or develop the competencies they have chosen to focus on for the year. The CPD Tool incorporates reflective practice, which is itself a type of learning activity because as you will learn in this course, you learn from reflecting on your practice. 

To get the most out of your professional development activities, you will need to reflect on and self-assess your existing knowledge, skills and attitudes, as well as your strengths and areas for improvement. The CPD Tool includes a proficiency scale that you can use as a guide when self-assessing your proficiency in any competency you choose to develop or enhance. It can be challenging to self-assess your strengths and weaknesses, and reflective practice helps to develop the ability to self-assess in an honest and constructive way. It also helps to reflect on what you learned during any professional development activity that you undertake as part of your annual CPD plan and whether your activities have increased your proficiency in the associated competency. 

In this course, you will learn what reflective practice is and where it comes from, the different kinds of reflection, why it’s important to lawyers and what it takes to become a reflective practitioner. You will also learn about the benefits of reflective practice for you and your legal practice.