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#Where Can I Find Free Online Law Courses?

MIT offers free online law courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Keep reading to find out what you could learn through these courses. Schools offering Juris Doctor degrees can also be found in these popular choices.

What You Need to Know

In addition to benefiting current and prospective lawyers, free online law courses can be applied to other fields, including business, criminology, sociology and public policy. You can find these noncredit courses, which can be completed at your own pace, through accredited postsecondary schools - most notably the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Although there is no cost to take these courses, you'll likely need to purchase or borrow textbooks to fully complete them.

1. Law and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Law and Society is an OpenCourseWare (OCW) class that originated as a for-credit course taught to undergraduates on campus. You can access materials, exams and assignments for free and study at your own pace, but you won't receive credit for this course.

You will study law as a social system with relationships to popular culture and political, economic and social issues. This course covers the consequences of laws and the roles of judges, lawyers and law enforcement officials. You will also examine law as a resource that people use to resolve problems.

What Assignments Will I Complete?

You could write a paper on each of the following topics: the legal profession, the criminal justice system and the rule of law. You might also write a final paper that is a revised version of one of the three previous papers. Completing assignments is voluntary because you won't interact with instructors.

What Materials Are Provided?

This course includes lecture notes on topics such as alternatives to law, the legal profession and the rule of law. You may access readings in textbooks, professional journals and other publications, as well as a guide to reading social science.

2. Technology, Law and the Working Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Another OCW course, Technology, Law and the Working Environment is based on a course that two professors taught to graduate students on the MIT campus. You won't receive credit for this course, but you can access its online content for free.

This course covers the relationship between labor laws, technology and the workplace. You will study the impact of technology on federal and state labor regulations, employee lawsuits, collective bargaining and job duties.

What Assignments Will I Complete?

You could write a 5-page memo presenting a United States government strategy that uses laws to decrease the presence of toxic substances in all workplaces, except those in the manufacturing sector. This paper should define the problem and explain how your strategy would solve it.

What Materials Are Provided?

This course includes readings in two textbooks on topics such as administrative law and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. You may purchase the textbooks through a link provided on the course webpage.

3. Gender and the Law in U.S. History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Also an OCW course from MIT, Gender and the Law in U.S. History was originally a for-credit course offered to undergraduates on campus. You can study this course for free, but you won't receive credit.

You will examine how laws have shaped the social roles of men and women and their relationships with each other. This course covers the influence of laws on gender roles in areas such as voting, divorce, politics, military service, marriage and jury duty.

You could write a 5- to 6-page paper on one of four topics provided or choose your own topic. You could also write a 14- to 16-page paper analyzing a topic on gender and the law that interests you.

This course provides links to landmark legal decisions that impacted women and gender relations, as well as a link to a website on women and social movements in the U.S. You can also access a link to the classic movie Adam's Rib. about a wife and husband who are opposing attorneys in the case of a woman who allegedly murdered her husband.