This course motivated me to complete it because the lectures were in bite size chunks. It helped me digest the information more than an hour long lecture would have because I could repeat a 15 minute lecture and still have time for other work I need to do. The lecturers spoke in a good pace and alternated with slides that highlighted important information.

This course was honestly everything you need to know for a beginner learning law, and it is also a great refresher for anybody who want to review common concepts!

A very interesting and well presented introduction to US law--even for those, like me, who are neither US citizens nor lawyers. The instructors manage to make some complex ideas simple to understand while not talking down to their students. Assessments were fairly straightforward but did cover the material fairly well.

The biggest weakness, in my view, was the discussion forums. As seems common in most courses on the new Coursera platform, the forums were fairly quiet. However, this was made worse by the apparent attitude of the course mentors who, whether intentionally or merely through their language limitations (neither of the most active mentors were native English speakers or US residents), seemed patronising and dismissive of entirely reasonable questions. Moreover, their input in ever thread served to stifle discussion between students; once they had given the 'correct' response any other input was entirely unwelcome.

I've never come across such apparently hostile 'mentoring' either online or in the traditional academic situations. For this reason alone I rate the course at a 4 rather than 5 star. Maybe later courses will have different mentors or the existing ones will improve their skills. If you can live without friendly and supportive forums then I unreservedly recommend the course.

A good introduction but now becoming somewhat out of date. The lectures were recorded in 2014 and law doesn't stand still; so for example the overturning of Roe vs Wade in the 2022 Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization isn't covered. The readings could also sometimes be better. Some of them are just links to other websites on law, which feels a bit lazy. It gives the impression that they couldn't be bothered to curate it properly and either produce their own materials or provide peer-reviewed offline sources. But the lectures are good and there is enough content when combined with the readings to give you an understanding of the main fields of US law and some comparative knowledge as to what makes it distinctive.

This course provided an excellent orientation of American law. I'm grateful for its availability. Nevertheless, I have a couple of criticisms. The course, more or less, jumps right into tort law without providing an introduction to define the hierarchy, history, and basic distinctions between common law and statute law, although much of this information is provided throughout each section, though redundantly. Also, the transcripts of each lecture were obviously generated by speech-recognition technology; thus, unremoved misspellings and punctuation errors horribly detract from them. Wouldn't it be a great idea if first-year English or linguistic students received extra credit for proofreading and editing the transcripts?

This was a long course and quite frankly that 4th professor ( ruger) really should NOT do public speaking he was horrible to listen to. Not to be rude but it's hard to comprehend things when the person speaking keeps making verbal mistakes. Some of the course we very good and interesting but some simply could not hold my attention.

If you're new to Coursera like I was. Then start with this Course. It's helps you understand the layout of how to utilize Coursera. As far as the Course itself. I fairly enjoyed it. I was really into the Constitutional & Criminal Law areas more so. I felt that Civil was a little bit dry, not the professor, but just the topic itself. But I really enjoyed learning more about arbitration and all of the elements that go into that. If you want an overall basic to American Law Course. Then start with this. The test weren't too difficult. But take notes and read and study up on the key terms and you should do well.

Hello university of pennsylvania, thank you for the broad content and quality of the professors and managers. Very rewarding to learn more about the construction of North American law. occupy the mind with solid basic content that broadens the mind to analyze better. I intend to take this course in paid form to obtain the certificate. I'm improving my health and wanted to occupy my mind with something good

Para quienes no somos estadounidenses, este curso resulta muy importante y útil para:

a. Conocer el sistema americano legal y de justicia.

b. Comparar con el sistema jurídico mexicano.

c. Identificar puntos negativos y positivos de ambos y proponer cambios o adapataciones.

Muchas felicitaciones a los expositores y muchas gracias por permitirme acceder gratis a este curso.

Saludos!!!

I gained infinite pleasure from listening and relistening to the beautiful sound of legal English spoken by lawyers.

As I work with people from Great Britain and the USA, I gained some skill of using legal terms to explain more acurately differences between common law system, particularly in the USA, and the legal system of my country.

Thanks you very much!

As a latin american educated lawyer, this introductory course to American Law has given me the opportunity to understand and have a broad idea of the basics aspects of American Law and how the legal system is organized. I truly recommend this course to all the lawyers educated abroad, to get to know better the American Legal system and it's institutions.

This is a great course. I go everywhere now knowing that the law is the same for when I was also taking my real estate license it's just unfortunate that this certificate does not offer college credit as I believe it should but you can put it on the resume as I have because why not I paid for it to learn American Law. All in all, this is a great course.

This course really help me a lot in understanding the basic of America law , the professor make it really easy to understand with great example , i just wish he got more of it . Overall this course is excellent ,i really enjoy it and i would definitely recommended it to anyone who interested. Many thanks to the professor and his team working on this .

Loved this course, definitely great for beginners who don't have much of a background in law. Introduces concepts effectively and describes concepts and terminology exceptionally. The workload is very light and assessments are very short, but in depth and challenging (to some extent). I would definitely recommend to anyone with an interest in law.

The course has a very efficient structure. As we progress through each type of common law in each week, we can experience and make connections from example cases between various sections of American Law. Thus, instructors make it not only about remembering but understandings of fundamentals of American Laws that we can apply to our daily basis.

Excellent introduction to American Law. The speakers were knowledgeable about the topics and considering what tuition at Penn is, I was fortunate to see these professors for the Coursera price of admission. Anyone interested in any type of law studies should complete this course to have some understanding of what our system is all about.

This is a very well planned and explanation to get people started in American Law. It is laid out so the user understands the content. I love how your are tested every so often during the video lectures to ensure you are paying attention and are understanding the content. The instructors did their job outstanding and instructed! A+ course!

This was a wonderful introduction to American law; nothing too in-depth, but a fantastic scraping of the surface, if you will, of various parts of U.S. law. The key terms were extremely helpful to have and a great preparation for the videos. I didn't get much out of the suggested readings personally, but I'm sure that others probably did.

I have really enjoyed this course. I it is very well explained and organized, the teachers are amazing, and it has been a wonderful experience, which will help me so much in my translating skills. I am so grateful for having this opportunity and I must emphasize, your teachers and the way the course is arranged is just perfect. Thanks!!

very I enjoyed this course, it was my very first online course I ever had and although intimidated at first I settled in and excelled. The course provided a very nice introduction to an array of American Law in a way that was easy to comprehend. A ton of resources for the material was available making studying easy not to mention fun.

The professors in this course were great. Each taught according to their specialty, so they were very thorough. I learned some things, or learned to think about the law differently, from each section. I really enjoyed this course, and I surely recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the multiple areas of the law.

Very Educational!

I learned so much from this class and I think this site is perfect for learning new subjects. I'm currently in school so it's great to have a flexible schedule with low stress. The course itself was fantastic with great professors teaching through videos and very easy to understand!

So glad I signed up for this!

This course was really informative and has information which was more empowering to me. I am from South Africa and when I compare how does the Federal and State work law wise it is totally different! Having said that I got clarity on how the property law and tort law works. This course really helped in understanding the two.

A fabulous introduction to American Law. Speaking as a citizen that was born and bred in the US, I learned much. I think it is an essential overview of our legal system and is valuable for any person. Even if you never interface with the legal system, the concepts and structure of our system are fundamental to our lives.