City firm takes CPD study on-line

Professional development: Denton Wilde Sapte has installed digital training

City firm Denton Wilde Sapte has become the one of the first top practices to embrace firm-wide on-line continuing professional development by awarding a contract to training specialist Mentor.Mentor is essentially a Web site that uses Web-streaming technology that enables staff to log onto lectures in 'real time'.

Once users have accessed the site from their PCs, the Mentor system utilises Windows Media, RealPlayer or QuickTime, to deliver video, audio and PowerPoint presentations over the Internet.

Lectures need not be downloaded or stored on computers.Users can download course notes before, during or after the lecture, have the opportunity to correspond with lecturers and ask questions via e-mail, as well as stop, start and replay lectures as often as required.Cathy Wilcox, Denton's director of legal training, said that with more than 800 staff operating from 33 offices in 21 countries, the convenience and cost benefits of offering on-line learning on a potentially global scale were critical.She explained: 'Mentor, and other on-line opportunities we are offering, will form an important part of our expanding e-learning initiative.

This will complement our current extensive programme of face-to-face legal training and will ultimately enable lawyers in our international offices to have access to training which might not otherwise be available to them because of their geographical location.'Dentons plans to sign up with other e-learning providers, and is also producing some in-house initiatives, such as bespoke money laundering training available on the firm's Intranet.

The firm can then monitor which lawyers have completed the course.

'We are approaching this on a gradual basis,' Ms Wilcox said, adding: 'It will never replace face-to-face training for some things.'Last month, Clifford Chance's finance and capital markets practice launched a pioneering on-line training scheme involving fee-earners downloading ten hours of digitally recorded presentations; its real estate practice is also set to take the e-learning route, while the potential to extend it to clients is also being explored (see [2001] Gazette, 17 May, 6).Mentor's managing director, Paul Harris, claimed that recent research showed how an e-learning training environment results in up to 30% higher learning retention than other training methods and up to a 60% faster learning curve.LINKS: www.mentor-uk.comNeil Rose