Call Lansing home to the $20 law degree.
Or some derivative of it.
For about 0.0006 percent of what a person would pay for a law degree at a typical university, People's Law School offers a $20 eight-week course on law topics.
There's no law degree, but it offers students a cursory study of topics, ranging from real estate to criminal law.
"Law school is a pretty serious commitment," said Jesse Green, communications director for the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association, which runs the school. "This is sort of a general overview. You aren't going to get this kind of stuff anywhere else. I didn't do anything like that before law school — I would have if I had the opportunity."
Though it has no building of its own, the law workshop has intermittently administered 400 to 500 courses across the state and country since 1978.
Beginning today, Cooley Law School will host nine speakers for the semester, ranging from Cooley professors to Michigan Supreme Court Justice Michael F. Cavanagh.
"It's the best deal in town," said Patrick Corbett, a Cooley law professor and People's Law School presenter.
David Brake, an attorney at Lansing-based Knaggs, Harter, Brake and Schneider, P.C., will teach a session on estate planning and probate administration.
"I think that our legal system works best if people are informed as to what their legal rights and responsibilities might be," Brake said.
All it takes is a community with an interest in the law, Green said, and a law firm willing to cooperate.
"Every People's Law School is different," Green said. "Everyone who attends (goes) for different reasons. We have people who have been coming to all eight sessions for years. A lot of people who come are students who end up going to law school."
He said the People's Law School intends to have sessions on criminal law, automotive no-fault insurance, an overview of the justice system, and family law and divorce.
One factor in the myriad of different subjects from one session to another is student feedback.
"We ask which sessions were valuable and we ask for input for next year," Green said.
For example, this is the first year students at the Lansing sessions will have the opportunity to take a course on identity theft.
"No one's making you go," Green said. " You have to want to go."
The sessions are held one day a week for two hours.
"It's something that we can give back to the community and educate the community," said Jessica Culham, a paralegal at Lansing-based Sinas, Dramis, Brake, Boughton and McIntyre, PC, which has two attorneys teaching classes in the workshop. "These sessions are very informative to people that don't know a lot about these laws. I enjoy doing it."
"(There is) a need for a lot more public education regarding the law," Green said. "For many people, it is a great mystery until something happens to you."
