Lawyers who attended a CLE program at St. Mary's University School of Law in October received 3.75 hours of ethics credit for “Christian Ethical Perspectives: Faith & Law Today,” but only after the sponsoring groups asked the State Bar of Texas to reconsider the accreditation.

But on Nov. 4, after the bar's Minimum Continuing Legal Education Committee evaluated the program to “determine if credit can be granted for future similar programs,” the MCLE committee notified St. Mary's law professor Bill Piatt that it would not approve the “activity” in the future. The law school at the largest Catholic university in Texas and others who put on that continuing legal education program have appealed MCLE decision.

“Upon completion of their evaluation, the committee found that this activity does not satisfy several of the accreditation criteria and therefore, will not be approved in the future,” MCLE Director Nancy Smith wrote in a letter to Bill Piatt, a professor at St. Mary's University School of Law who is also president of the Catholic Lawyers Guild of San Antonio.