Rule 43.1.Program Requirements

Rule 43.1 sets the baseline for how Georgia keeps its superior court judges current on the law and on judicial conduct. Every judge, including senior judges still hearing cases, must log twelve hours of approved judicial education each year, with at least one of those hours devoted specifically to legal or judicial ethics or professionalism. Judges also have to attend a superior court conference at least once every two years. Extra hours earned beyond twelve in a given year are not wasted — they roll forward to cover the following year’s requirement, though no further.

New judges face an additional, front-loaded obligation. Within a year of taking the bench — and ideally before they hear their first case — a new judge must complete the Institute of Continuing Judicial Education’s in-state orientation program or an equivalent local course, with a national basic course for trial judges encouraged as well. That new-judge requirement is separate from a broader, standing invitation: every judge, regardless of tenure, is encouraged to attend national or regional specialty, graduate, or advanced programs of judicial and legal education.

The rule sets out what counts toward the twelve-hour requirement, and not all of it counts the same way. Programs from ICJE and continuing legal education accredited by the State Bar’s Commission on Continuing Lawyer Competency qualify automatically. Other programs can also count, but only after the Council’s education committee approves them individually; relevant law school courses qualify as well, and so does service on the Judicial Qualifications Commission or the State Bar Disciplinary Board when it involves ethics or professionalism. Teaching also counts, and it counts generously: judges earn three hours of credit for each hour they lecture without a handout, six hours if they prepare one, two hours for serving as a panelist or mock trial judge, and additional credit if they repeat the same presentation later in the same year.