This is one of the better “great courses” programs, mostly because it was a broad selection of topics which gave fairly comprehensive coverage of the field. I was already pretty familiar with criminal law, constitutional law, data privacy/etc, and very familiar with homicide and self defense law. However, I had basically insufficient knowledge of the rules of civil procedure and almost no knowledge of torts and product liability. After the course, I don’t know anything more about criminal law (except some confidence my knowledge is comprehensive in scope), and I know the basics of civil procedure and product liability and torts. This is exactly what one would want from a program like this.

Everything was clearly presented, with good examples (the classic ones from law school.). You don’t particularly need any domain specific knowledge to follow it. Strongly recommend. ( )

An excellent overview of the American legal system. The first of the three parts, presented by Molly Shadel, is certainly the most engaging, as it talks about famous cases of the recent past. Shadel lets us see the strategies, good and bad, that the prosecution and defense used, and as a result, we can better understand some of these unpopular verdicts, such as the OJ Simpson trial. Once we move into the other aspects of law, things are still educational, but rarely as interesting. It is pretty hard to make torts as interesting as Johnny Cochran. Not that the other two presents, Joseph Hoffman and Edward Cheng, are not also fluent and knowledgeable, they are just stuck talking about some of the more complex arcane parts of the law. In any case, this is highly recommended, and I would support any of these three if they are nominated for the Supreme Court. ( )