M.A. Degree Requirements

1. Candidates for the Master of Arts in Mental Disability Law Studies at New York Law School must earn at least 30 course credits of approved course work.

2. Candidates must successfully complete the six courses of the Core Curriculum (all courses are 3 credits):  

• Survey of Mental Disability Law – must be taken the first semester the course is offered after the candidate is admitted
• The Americans with Disabilities Act: Law, Policy, and Practice or Mental Disability and Criminal Law
• International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law
• Advocacy Skills in Cases Involving Persons with Mental Disabilities: The Role of Lawyers and Expert Witnesses
• Mental Health Issues in Jails and Prisons or Sex Offenders
• Therapeutic Jurisprudence or Race, Gender, Class, and Mental Disability

3. Candidates who have successfully completed previous course work prior to spring 2009, either in the Online Mental Disability Law Program as a non-matriculated student or in identical or analogous predecessor courses offered by New York Law School prior to the creation of the Online Mental Disability Law Program, may apply some or all of these credits towards the master’s degree.

4. Accelerated M.A. in Mental Disability Law Studies. Candidates may be able to accelerate the completion of the M.A. by applying a maximum of nine credits or three courses of successfully completed previous course work after spring 2009 as a New York Law School J.D. student or as a non-matriculated student, either in the Online Mental Disability Law Program, as a visiting student at New York Law School, or at one of the program’s partnership schools.

5. International candidates and candidates without J.D. degrees must successfully complete Introduction to the American Legal System, unless they have demonstrated proficiency in the study of American law or successfully completed equivalent course work.

6. In addition to the Core Curriculum, candidates must successfully complete three elective courses (all courses are 3 credits).

7. Candidates must successfully complete an independent writing project (3 credits). Mental disability law attorneys and mental health professionals are often called upon to write about a range of mental disability law topics in appellate briefs or in presenting papers at professional meetings or symposia. Because so much of this field involves evolving developments in the law, attorneys and mental health professionals need to have the ability to write well about sophisticated legal and policy issues. Thus, the curriculum includes an independent writing project that relates to one or more of the topics covered in the substantive courses. These papers are supervised by the Online Mental Disability Law Program director and adjunct faculty. Students will be offered the option to convert their writing projects into papers appropriate for publication in a scholarly journal.

8. To graduate, a candidate must have a minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.5.

9. The requirements for the Master of Arts in Mental Disability Law Studies degree and all other New York Law School and program policies are subject to change without notice. Candidates for the Master of Arts in Mental Disability Law Studies degree must satisfy any other requirements for the degree that are in force when the degree is conferred.

10. With advance written permission of the director of the Online Mental Disability Law Program, candidates may be granted up to nine credits for course work successfully completed at an ABA-accredited or state bar-approved law school or medical school, or in graduate programs in psychology, social work, criminology, criminal justice, or other related program.