Law students, legal professionals, and individuals interested in the law can find free, easy-to-access classes online to advance their education and broaden their horizons. Many schools that support open courseware classes feature law and law-related classes that can be found by searching through the school’s political science, anthropology, psychology, criminal justice, international relations, and even business or media departments. From criminal law to civil law to public policy to media law, open courseware offers a full range of law classes and resources that are available 24/7. Classes can be completed at the student’s own pace, making it easy for full-time professionals and students to complete assignments and read or listen to lectures.

This collection of law classes comes from colleges and universities like the University of Alabama, North Carolina Wesleyan College, MIT, and The Open University. Classes like Criminal Law, Law and Society, Constitutional Law, and Privacy Rights and the Law cover topics in mental disease, the nature of punishment, sexual offenses, the U.S. Supreme court, civil rights, law as a social institution, the right to privacy and more. Through open courseware, students can get a well-balanced introductory law education or find highly specialized courses that correspond to their industry. Courses can be taken to deepen a student’s understanding of a particular issues or used as preparation for a more formal law school education.

• Criminal Law [University of Alabama] – This course covers criminal law topics from sexual offenses to homicide to mental disease to punishment.
• Constitutional Law [North Carolina Wesleyan College] – Learn about civil rights, constitutional liberties, the U.S. Supreme court and more in this survey course.
• Law and Society [MIT] – Students explore “the central features of law as a social institution and as a feature of popular culture” in this MIT class.
• Privacy Rights and the Law [The Open University] – This UK-centric course questions the nature of privacy and the right to privacy in the United Kingdom.
• Reading Seminar in Social Science: Race, Crime, and Citizenship in American Law [MIT] – Consider the nature of race as it relates to criminal justice in the U.S.