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Course: Civil Litigation
Self-Paced Online Course: $ 995
Estimated Study Hours: 79

Sometimes companies and individuals need to ask the courts to settle disputes and assert their rights. Litigation is not only for lawyers. This course explains the key aspects of litigation in the US, using the Federal courts as examples. Numerous video lectures are combined with electronic textbook readings and quizzes to present the materials.

The topics covered include intentional torts, negligence, strict liability, personal injury and other torts, personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction, venue, pleadings, joinder, service of process, discovery, California-specific civil procedure considerations, relevancy of evidence, character evidence, hearsay, witnesses and impeachment, expert witnesses, authentication and privileges, damages, injunctions, declaratory judgments, contempt, restitution and other remedies.

The skills you learn here will be useful in any business or career where you might be involved with lawsuits and court cases. You exit this course having studied all the typical litigation-related rules, regulations and materials that U.S. lawyers study in law school. You will not be required to read and debate specific cases, but will have a good basic understand of each of the laws and legal concepts.

Learning Objectives

In taking this course, students gain a comprehension of the following:

The law in the U.S. relating to intentional torts, negligence, strict liability and the remedies available to the injured parties from U.S courts.
How process is served on individuals when a lawsuit is iniatiated and the essential federal rules regarding the complaint, answer and other court papers and pleadings.
How evidence is discovered and shared by the opposing parties in a lawsuit in U.S. federal court.
The key distinctions between the rules of civil procedure as applied in California versus the federal court system.
How the trial is conducted in U.S. federal court, and how prior judgments are handled.
The basic rules of civil procedure in the U.S. federal courts, including personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction and venue.
The rules of evidence, as adopted in the U.S. federal courts including relevancy, character evidence, hearsay, witness testimony and impeachment, expert witnesses, authentication and privileges.
The distinctions between the rules of evidence adopted in California and those adopted in the U.S. federal court system.
How the U.S. courts are able to award a variety of remedies including damages (money), injunctions, declaratory judgments, and restitution.
The powers of the judge and courts in the US to award damages and to sanction individuals for contempt.

Modules

This course comprises the following learning modules:

Torts
Civil Procedure
Evidence
Remedies

Videos, eTextbooks and Rich Media Content

The course materials are provided in a range of compelling rich media formats comprising videos, electronic textbooks, audio recordings, interactive quizzes and links to online content. As a wealth of valuable educational videos and other materials are publicly available online, we supplement our courses with links to these reference materials where we find they are relevant to the course and will be of value to the student.

What's Included In the Price?

All the content comprising the course is included in the price.  This includes access to the textbooks which are provided online with ereader software--unless you want to buy a paper-version of the textbook, you will not be required to buy any books or additional materials.

What you Will Need

To access the online materials you need some way of getting online. Our materials are compatible with the major platforms including Windows, Android and Apple. You will need a PC, laptop or tablet and an Internet connection.

Self-Paced Learning

You are free to take the course in your own time, on your own terms--on whatever schedule suits you best.  Your enrollment in the course will continue for 12 months.  If you need further time after the 12 months has expired, please request an extension. Please note: the textbook publishers restrict the online licenses to 180 days, so your access to the textbooks will expire 180 days after you start the course.

When You Have Questions

You will be provided with a tutor who will be your primary point of contact with SVBS.  Each course module has an online question and answer forum. When you have a question, you can check the forum to see if the question has been asked before by other students, and the answer provided. If the question is new, submit it in the forum and it will be answered by our faculty, normally within a few hours. SVBS has an escalation process that ensures that even the most advanced, difficult questions can be answered--ultimately, the question can be answered by a leading expert in the field if it cannot be handled by our regular faculty. 

Admission Qualifications

We do not want to restrict our courses to an elite few. Our approach is to make our courses available to any student, any time, anywhere in the World. You will not be asked to provide any transcripts of previous academic qualifications.  If you're interested in learning what we're teaching, you're welcome to become a student at SVBS. 

Completion Requirements

You will take a quiz comprising multiple-choice questions in order to complete each course module. You can take the quiz as many times as you like, and the questions are designed to be educational in their own right. However, you have to answer all the questions correctly in order to successfully complete the course.

Certificates
 
Upon successful completion of each course, you will be awarded a certificate either by Silicon Valley Business School, or another University or Business School--this depends on whether you enrolled directly with SVBS or via one of our University partners.