The Great Courses: Law School for Everyone

To many people, the law is both powerful and mysterious. We depend on lawyers to help us navigate rules, standards, and procedural codes that have been around for hundreds of years. Because we depend on their specialized skills in argumentation, logic, and critical thinking, we may wonder how they come to know so much about the inner workings of the law.

 

• Disc 1 - Litigation and legal practice
• 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
• Disc 2 - Litigation and legal practice.
• The art of the objection 
• Problematic evidence
• Controlling cross-examination
• Closing arguments : driving your theory home
• Understanding the appellate process 
• Disc 3 - 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 
• Disc 4 - Criminal law and procedure. 
• Due process and the right of counsel
• Government searches and privacy rights
• The shrinking warrant requirement
• The Fifth Amendment privilege 
• Miranda and police interrogations 
• Plea bargains, jury trials, and justice 
• Disc 5 - Civil procedure. 
• 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
• Disc 6 - Civil procedure. 
• 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 
• Disc 7 - Torts. 
• 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
• Disc 8 - Torts. 
• 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.