Education is the government's watchword.

And solicitors, perhaps more imbued with the spirit of learning that the average person, are encouraged to make a personal development plan for themselves, to include training courses.

The extension of the existing continuing professional development scheme from November 1998 will mean that in order to maintain a practising certificate, all solicitors will have to notch up 48 continuing professional development (CPD) hours over three years.The minimum amount of CPD to be completed on accredited courses run by bodies authorised by the Law Society will be a quarter of this, 12 hours, but at the other extreme all 48 hours can be spent on training courses.The Association of Solicitor Investment Managers (ASIM) has always considered training to be one of its most important functions.

Many of its courses offer opportunities for senior lawyers -- since investment issues are often of relevance to legal work -- as well as for the investment management staff to whom they are primarily pitched.Not only does ASIM show firms the opportunities and costs of investment management but it also provides the only course for investment teams' staff to qualify under the Law Society rules, helping these and others to gain expertise in this rapidly developing area of specialisation.The most valuable workshop run by ASIM for firms considering a move into financial services is setting up an in-house investment management service, giving the regulatory and legal perspectives, a business plan with a projected profit and loss account, and discussion of what is needed in terms of personnel, systems and solving practical problems.ASIM is the only organisation to offer a tailor-made training course for the Law Society exams.

The course runs for four days and has helped many firms give depth to their operations by enabling more members to become q ualified and thus raise the level of knowledge within individual firms.

In the same vein, ASIM offers the ethics and accounts course which non-solicitors are obliged to take within a year of achieving qualified person status under Law Society rules.As departments grow, the leader inevitably finds his or her role changing and management skills courses are provided to help equip such individuals for the new challenges.

These include a media and presentation skills course that has been run in Winchester, using radio and television studios.In an effort to help firms continue to grow in expertise, ASIM runs courses on analysing financial statements, advising the elderly client and complex aspects of investment management, with speakers such as Jim Slater on equity valuation methods and Martin Dolan of Merrill Lynch discussing new valuation techniques such as economic value added (EVA).

Courses in the new year include expanding and managing a growing department, tax and its impact on investment, dealing with difficult clients and Investing for charities and children.

Most ASIM courses are run in London but there have been a few presented elsewhere -- in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Winchester and Bristol.Looking to the future, ASIM intends to continue to run a broad range of courses with, amongst others, regular sessions of the popular course on analysing financial statements, which is designed to give delegates a basic understanding of company accounts and to appreciate the key features and ratios derived from the balance sheet, profit-and-loss account and cash flow statements.In December the regular winter general meeting will be held at the London Chamber of Commerce, sponsored this year by Barings.

This will cover regulatory issues and strategies for investment.As investment management skills develop and the private client market becomes more astute, training courses will focus on such subjects as 'benchmarking' and international investment management.

There is much debate currently over how the performance of a portfolio should be measured and this is a topic that features in a future training day, having been the topic for one of the workshop sessions at the most recent summer conference.

Equally, as member firms increase their funds under management, many are of the view that overseas investment should be undertaken through direct equity investments rather than unit trusts or investment trusts.

This introduces issues of accounting rules, different ways of dealing in shares and the question of settlement and custodianship of the underlying securities.

These topics are a good illustration of how ASIM sees members' training requirements developing in the near future.The question of holding clients' assets was the topic of a number of courses over the period running up to the introduction of Crest.

There was much concern about planning for Crest and this became a topic for ASIM training at the summer conference in 1996.

The purpose was to highlight the forthcoming problems that were likely to face firms.

There was a deliberate policy not to try to influence firms on how they should proceed but to make them aware of the possible options.The focus of the annual programme is the summer conference meeting which was sponsored for the first three years by Schroders but more recently has attracted multiple sponsorship from Prudential, Henderson Investors, Baillie Gifford, Abtrust, Lazards, Gartmore and Credit Suisse.

The conference spans two days and features investment management and practical practice managemen t topics.

It gives firms the opportunity to discuss a range of issues both formally in training sessions and workshops or informally during the breaks between sessions and over meals.The ASIM training philosophy is to offer relevant courses at reasonable cost and the expansion of our training programme reflects the growing demand.-- Enquiries should be directed to the Association of Solicitor Investment Managers, telephone: 01892 870 065.