Careers in Law: Introduction to the US Legal System

• Map perspectives within the American criminal justice system

• Examine how common law and constitutional law evolved

• Discuss legal dilemmas involving students and social media

• Research the background and reasoning of landmark decisions

• Evaluate how a verdict changed behavior or institutions

• Present a precedent-based prediction through multimedia

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain how courts, law enforcement, victims, and offenders interact within criminal justice

• Analyze a landmark decision using facts, reasoning, precedent, and social impact

• Develop and defend a prediction about how legal precedent may shape future cases

Students leave with a completed landmark-case analysis and stronger skills in legal research, precedent, civic reasoning, and multimedia advocacy.

Legal reasoning helps students distinguish facts, interpretations, rules, and consequences. Landmark decisions show how a court’s reasoning can shape institutions and individual conduct long after a case ends.

Examining multiple perspectives also strengthens civic judgment. Students consider how legal systems affect different groups, why subjective truth may conflict with objective facts, and how precedent constrains future decisions. These habits support research, argument, and informed participation in public life. Together, these skills strengthen careful reasoning, responsible professional judgment, and the ability to revise a conclusion when new evidence changes the picture.

This course is for high school students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade and are interested in law, criminal justice, government, history, policy, or civic debate. It fits students who want to understand how court decisions shape society.

Participants should be ready to read legal material, discuss contested issues respectfully, compare different perspectives, research a landmark case, and deliver a multimedia presentation. Evidence-based reasoning and intellectual openness will support success. Success depends on careful preparation, steady participation, and respect for classmates’ perspectives throughout the course.

Based on students surveyed in Summer Discovery’s 2026 program at the University of Michigan.

Programs on the University of Michigan campus give high-school students the experience of exploring an academic interest in Ann Arbor, a college town where campus and community life blend together. Tree-lined streets, downtown bookstores and cafés, the Nichols Arboretum, and trails near the Huron River create different ways to experience the setting beyond class.

Students learn alongside peers, navigate a large and active campus, and gain independence through everyday choices in a new environment. The experience helps students understand what university life can feel like while giving them space to deepen an interest without having every next step decided. For families, the program offers a meaningful combination of academic depth, community, personal growth, and clearer direction about what a student may want to study or pursue next.

Attorneys, judges, law-enforcement professionals, policy analysts, researchers, and advocates examine facts, precedent, institutional authority, and social consequences. They must communicate how a legal rule applies and where interpretation remains contested.

Students practice that work through legal dilemmas, landmark decisions, group presentations, research, and a precedent-focused capstone. The course offers a grounded introduction to law, criminal justice, public policy, government, legal research, and advocacy. The work also shows how specialists collaborate across roles and communicate important evidence-based decisions to colleagues, clients, organizations, or the public in complex professional settings.