Reflective Practice

In 2022, the Law Society of Alberta developed a new Professional Development Profile for Alberta lawyers, which sets out the competencies the Law Society believes are important for safe, effective and sustainable legal practice. The Profile includes nine areas of competency, including Continuous Improvement.  Reflective practice is an essential part of continuous improvement, continuing competence and life-long learning but it is also a meta-competency that can help lawyers to improve in any other competency they choose to develop.   

The Law Society’s new Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Tool will allow 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. You are encouraged to learn more about this practice before using the CPD Tool to create your plan for the year.  

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.