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The Great Courses Plus

Law School For Everyone

via The Great Courses Plus

Overview

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The skills lawyers wield in courtrooms across the country are the result of years of study. As much as we'd like to cultivate these same skills, the truth is that you cannot know how a lawyer thinks and works without studying the law itself.

Now there's an easier way to get the same foundational knowledge as lawyers - without the enormous time and financial commitment. Over the span of 48 lectures, four experienced lawyers and teachers recreate key parts of the first-year law student experience, introducing you to main areas of law most every beginning student studies.

You'll start with 12 lectures on litigation and legal practice that offer eye-opening answers to many questions about the art and craft of legislation. In the second 12 lectures, you'll learn how criminal law and procedure - an area of law dramatized by countless TV shows - really works. Additional lectures investigate the civic procedures courts follow to resolve disputes about substantive rights and examine broader questions any system of litigation must address. And 12 lectures are devoted entirely to the stranger-than-fiction topic of tort law.

Enriched with famous cases from the annals of American law and powerful arguments by some of history's most successful lawyers, these lectures offer access to an often intimidating, surprisingly accessible, and civically important field.

Syllabus

  • Litigation and the American Legal System
  • Thinking like a Lawyer
  • Representing Your Client
  • Trial Strategy behind the Scenes
  • Opening Statements: The Moment of Primacy
  • Direct Examination: Questioning Your Witnesses
  • The Art of the Objection
  • Problematic Evidence
  • Controlling Cross-Examination
  • Closing Arguments: Driving Your Theory Home
  • Understanding the Appellate Process
  • Arguing before the Supreme Court
  • Who Defines Crimes, and How?
  • Crime and the Guilty Mind
  • Homicide and Moral Culpability
  • The Law of Self-Defense
  • Federal Crimes and Federal Power
  • Cruel and Unusual Punishments
  • Due Process and the Right to Counsel
  • Government Searches and Privacy Rights
  • The Shrinking Warrant Requirement
  • The Fifth Amendment Privilege
  • Miranda and Police Interrogations
  • Plea Bargains, Jury Trials, and Justice
  • Procedural Rights and Why They Matter
  • Subject Matter Jurisdiction
  • Jurisdiction over the Defendant
  • A Modern Approach to Personal Jurisdiction
  • The Role of Pleadings
  • Understanding Complex Litigation
  • The Use and Abuse of Discovery
  • Deciding a Case before the Trial Ends
  • The Right to a Civil Jury Trial
  • Determining What Law Applies
  • Relitigation and Preclusion
  • Appeals and How They Are Judged
  • The Calamitous World of Tort Law
  • Legal Duty to Others
  • Reasonable Care and the Reasonable Person
  • Rules versus Standards of Care
  • The Complexities of Factual Causation
  • Legal Causation and Foreseeability
  • Liability for the Acts of Others
  • When Tort Plaintiffs Share the Blame
  • Animals, Blasting, and Strict Liability
  • The Rise of Products Liability
  • Products Liability Today
  • Punitive Damages and Their Limits

Taught by

Taught By Multiple Professors

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4.6 rating at The Great Courses Plus based on 127 ratings

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