I'm starting law school soon but don't have a pre-law background. This course has been very helpful in getting me acquainted with some of the general areas of law to which I'll be exposed in school. Being taught by law professors helped me to get a basic understanding of many of the principles of the law as well as many of the terms that I will need to be familiar with once I'm thrown in the deep end.

I'd recommend this course to anyone either thinking about going into the study of law or actually getting ready to enter law school.

I enjoyed this course and it helped me to understand the basic parts of American Law. My only suggestion is to provide even more cases as examples to demonstrate the doctrines and statutes. Thank you.

This is an excellent class, presentations and content from expert professors are well done, I highly recommend this class whether you're studying law or any other discipline this class is essential.

I have no background in law whatsoever and this course was a very brief and to the point introduction to the US law. I really liked the partitioning of the course. Each week goes after a specific aspect and gives a great overview.

I highly recommend this informative course, and it's the first one I've ever completed on Coursera. I candidly appreciate all the hard work done by these excellent professors. Thank you so much for enlightening me! As a Chinese whose undergraduate major is journalism, it effectively informs such a foreign layman like me of some basics of American law. Through step-by-step illustrations, it provides a general picture of the American law, explain its distinctiveness, and shows various problems developed during the construction, interpretation, and application of this legal system. What impressed me and made me think the most during this intellectual journey was how institutional culture of enforcement coupled with constant shift of societal norms was incrementally shaping and consolidating the American law. Although there is still a lot to absorb and internalize, I feel happy and refreshed!

A well designed course to provide an overview into the American Law and legal system. I would recommend this to all those who want to understand the American Law especially to legal professionals from other countries who want to seek a deeper understanding into the subject. The professors do a great job of explaining major subjects of the American Law in a precise and uncomplicated manner. The reviews and tests are thought provoking and require some serious prior study and understanding. I have learnt a great deal from this course.

Como persona que ejerce el derecho en un pais extranjero (Chile) el curso ha sido una fantastica comparativa, que permite ver las diferencias y similitudes entre ambos sistemas. Muy recomendado.

As a person who works as attorney at a diferent country (Chile) this course has been a fantastic oportunity to compair both legal systems, and their diferences and similarities. Very recomended.

I can't believe this is free. As I'm beginning law school this fall, I wanted to find a source online that gave me a good foundation of the basic principles and areas of law I'll be focusing on in my first year, and this course was perfect. I feel much more prepared to take on being a 1L. If you're beginning law school soon, I would 100% recommend this course, especially with how important 1L grades are.

A great first step on understanding the basic principles of American Law, providing an insight into impact on the systems we encounter on a daily basis and how these systems have developed over time.

Too much theoretical;

The teachers talk way too much about principles, general ideas and special cases;

It should be more practical if necessary with more videos, so that after the course students would be able to have a better knowledge of the American Law.

Este curso es de gran ayuda para personas que son inmigrantes como yo y quiere tener conocimiento del país al que hemos arribado como es los Estados Unidos de América.

Personalmente se que es tarea difícil entender las leyes de cada país y como abogada, graduada en Colombia, mi tierra natal siento la necesidad de aprender y entender como se maneja el sistema legal, sus origines y principales aspectos de Norte América.

Considero esta aplicación como herramienta accesible debido a que hablo español y los videos de este curso se encuentran con la traducción durante su reproducción, para mi es satisfactorio sentirme en un entorno de conocimiento incluyente al que puedo ser parte gracias a que comprendo y analizo con mayor facilidad los temas.

This course helped me understand most of the information shared from within.

But it remains unclear why or how some arbitration may be binding. That concept needs further explanation, since some arbitration may be dismissed or overruled. I do not know why some arbitrated cased are final and closed, but other arbitrated cases move to litigation.

I also do not understand why different arbitrators would deliver different opinions or decisions over one case, were they asked.

Please share your thoughts regarding this. My contact information is: ewropsagent@yahoo.com.

Thank you for your time and service.

Barbara

I found this course very interesting and informative and found the Professors very easy to follow and clearly spoken. I would recommend this course to anyone looking to get into the legal industry in the USA.

I enjoyed learning about our laws and it's applications, as well as history. The course was informative and enjoyable. The presenters were knowledgeable and easy to understand. Well worth the time.

Very comprehensive-- thoroughly enjoyed the lectures on the Constitution. Thought I needed more time for the additional readings; however, inclusion of a quasi-text (or text) was great. Thank you.

Right now I'm a middle school English teacher, but I've been considering going to law school and pursuing a career in educational law. In my time as a teacher, I've personally witnessed how students are failed every day by the education system and I want to do something about that. I haven't applied to schools yet, but I wanted to take a course to get an idea of the kinds of things I will study. This course really confirmed my desire to pursue law. I felt highly motivated to complete the assignments and found the lectures and readings interesting. I especially enjoyed the module on Constitutional Law. For anyone thinking of going to law school, I think this course is a nice sneak peak.

I came into this course knowing almost nothing about American Law. Now that I have finished this course, I believe I could go into a court room, and watch the proceedings and actually understand what is happening. Of course, I do not know all of the details, and this did not teach the details. This course gives a practical and intelligent way of portraying the different aspects of Law. Not only does this course represent the substance of Law in a practical manner, but it also is a true introduction as it states. There are no prerequisites required to take this course, and anyone with a decent vocabulary and reading skills can take this course.

The course has provided excellent overview of the American Law. this course helped me in understanding some basic key concepts of the law. the content of the course and selection of the facilitators is awesome. i really liked the Instructor of Criminal Law, his presentation, clarity in concepts and command on the subject is praise worthy. at the end i feel motivated to learn more about the American Legal system which is driving the world towards an ideal justice system. Thanks and profound regards to Penn Instructors and the Coursera Team for providing this valuable learning opportunity with quality content in an awesome way .

As a Brit new to the US I found this course to be a wonderful introduction to the structure and ideas that make up the American legal system. The course lectures are easy to follow, and the reading material very useful. To get the best from the course you need to spend more reading time than the course suggests, especially if unfamiliar with the American legal system at the point of starting the course. Overall I would thoroughly recommend this as a great introduction to American Law, it's evolution over time, and the things that make it unique.

An excellent course. The story telling approach is most suitable for a short introductory course. Concise and punchy without sacrifice of quality. I find the segment on constitutional law not only particularly interesting, but also clears up a lot of my mis-conception about the United States constitution, political system and politics. A big thank you to all 6 professors who are kind enough to have taken the time to present the lectures. An high quality educational experience, though brief, that few other law schools can match or rival.

This course is very informative. I enjoyed taking the course. I believe I can forward this course to another interested person. on a scale of 1-10, I give the course the rating of 11. I approve this course for our humans who live on Mars, therefore this course represents the education system of intergalactic space travel. I am reviewing many universities to determine which universities participace in our now future space program. I write space missions for Princeton, and NASA. I know what I am looking for.

I could only say what a great course is! It is especially interesting for a civil law attorney to understand the very deep foundational differences between the American common law and our legal systems. For example, while civil law completely recognizes an action for the called pre-contractual liability these actions are straightforwardly denied in the U.S because it would imply undermining their basic notions of freedom to contract and therefore to consent. Thanks to all the great professors of Penn Law.

Very interesting course. I'm a student of Law and Business Administration in Bocconi and I found the apporach in the course very useful in order to be introducted to the American Legal System. The differences between the other systems are well defined and every concept is explained in an easy way, allowing even students without a legal background at being involved. At the same time it remains interesting for students who already have a legal background for its comparative issues.

Excellent because each instructor taught the course by first giving an historical introduction to ground the lessons on concrete facts. Then these professors took us step by step to the current state of our laws. In some subjects evolutionary faults within a particular type of law were mentioned. I found it very helpful to be made aware of the many problems that currently exist in our legal system, how we have gotten to this point, what the original intent of a body of law was to the history of those laws and what the framers of our constitution had in mind in drafting it.