Online Mental Disability Law Program: Program Overview

Presentation of Course Materials

The majority of course content is delivered via 14 hours of recorded presentations available on streaming video and via comprehensive reading assignments.  The recorded presentations are available on the program’s secure, password-protected website.  Textbooks may be ordered online through the New York Law School bookstore.  Students are responsible for viewing the presentations and completing the readings according to the weekly schedule provided by the course instructor.  All relevant course information, including the course syllabus and all assignments, is posted on the course website.

Internet Chat Rooms and Blogs

The program uses the Internet to provide the highest possible quality and amount of peer/faculty interaction.  The program’s website is a centralized, private, and secure interaction portal for students, professors, and program administrators.  It hosts live weekly discussion sessions in an online chat room (moderated by a professor), "threaded" blogs, and personalized e-mail access to the program's faculty and staff.

Using the web as a teaching tool and for communications together with viewing of lectures and reading of assignments, allows students to complete their course work from the convenience of their homes or offices.

Live Seminars

Live seminars are held two times a semester for each course, over weekend days at New York Law School, usually within one month after the course begins, and at the end of each semester.  They provide an opportunity for students to connect in person with program faculty in order to best integrate the course material learned through the recordings, readings, blogs, and chat rooms.  These seminars are interactive and feature simulations and demonstrations in critical areas of mental disability law, such as  counseling clients with mental disabilities; involuntary civil commitment hearings; incompetency to stand trial hearings; and right to refuse medication decision-making.