Webinars: welcome not warm enough?

"At last, the webinar
has finished ...!"

Following a survey of his clients and contacts, IP transactions guru Mark Anderson (Anderson Law LLP) has posted a note on the responses he received to his various promptings regarding the use of webinars for legal training (see "Is webinar legal training viable? The results are in…", on IP Draughts here). he concluded that, while there was some interest, it was not expressed with a degree of warmth and conviction that would tempt him to organise it himself.

Within solo and small IP practices, the need to collect points or hours for continuing professional development purposes can be a continuing worry.  Commercial conferences and seminars can be expensive in terms of registration fees and time spent away from one's practice. Even when they are reasonably priced and not too inconvenient, by the time they come round they may clash with urgent and deadline-facing client work that cannot be dropped. Many practitioners leave it till late in the year to clock up their entitlements, which can also induce extra stress.

Webinars would appear to address most of these issues pretty well. Why, then, are they not more popular? Is it because those who work in relative isolation from their colleagues really appreciate the chance to meet them socially at training events? Or is it that they spend quite enough time facing a computer monitor as it is, and need to get away from it from time to time?