Law Shelf

Law Shelf

BOGO deal exclusively for HS4CC families!

Use the code HS4CC at checkout to get ONE FREE COURSE with any purchase.

There is no age restriction, no application, no standardized testing, and no high school transcript required to take the courses or exams.

Law Shelf is worth college credit because of its evaluation through NCCRS. Acceptance of NCCRS credit, in general, is the most limited type.

12 scenarios when you should use Law Shelf in your Homeschooling for College Credit program.

1. You have a student interested in legal topics or is curious about the law.
2. You’re looking for free high school courses.
3. You’re looking for free college credit.
4. Your teen prefers courses without writing assignments.
5. Your teen prefers open-book exams.
6. Your teen is dislikes video proctoring (Law Shelf uses voice proctoring)
7. Your teen learns well by watching videos.
8. Your teen likes to learn at their own pace.
9. You do not want to pay for a monthly subscription.
10. You don’t want a paper trail if you drop, withdraw, or fail.
11. You are okay with the possibility of the credit not being used for a college degree later.
12. You’re looking at one of Law Shelf’s partner colleges for a degree in the future.

Partner Colleges (01/2024)

1. Excelsior College (NY) Equivalency List
2. Thomas Edison State University (NJ) Equivalency List TBA
3. Purdue Global (IN) Equivalency List
4. University of Maryland Global (MD) Equivalency List
5. Southern New Hampshire University
6. Troy University (AL) Equivalency List
7. American InterContinental (TX/GA) Equivalency List
8. DeVry (IL) Equivalency List
9. The University of Phoenix Equivalency List
10. Touro University (CA) Equivalency List
11. Bellevue University Equivalency List
12. National Paralegal College Accelerated Bachelor’s Degree

Proctored Exam

A Law Shelf course requires passing a final exam in order to earn college credit. The final exam is open book and requires a proctor fee of $20/credit (most courses are 3 credits). Unlike a lot of remote proctoring, these exams are NOT proctored via video webcam, they are instead proctored using Voice Proctor.

You’ll need to set up your Voice Proctor account at least one day before you want to take the exam. This process and link is integrated into your Law Shelf course.

From Voice Proctor’s website “Before the student can take exams using the Voice Proctor™ system, the student registers his/her voice print on the Voice Proctor™ servers using the Voice Proctor™ website in conjunction with a standard telephone. Schools have the option to have the initial voice print registration call made in front of a webcam and to have the student display a government-issued ID during the call-in session. The webcam session can be recorded and stored by Voice Proctor™ and is accessible to the school’s records department at any time. The initial call is the only time a webcam is used within the Voice Proctor™ testing environment.

Voice Proctor™ uses a standard telephone to record voice responses of students at random points during exams by asking them to verbally explain answers given to previous questions. These responses are stored on the Voice Proctor™ servers and can easily be compared with an original voice print that the student gave when he/she signed in to the Voice Proctor™ system for the first time.”

For any given exam, schools have the OPTION of setting how many proctored events will occur and for which students. Proctored events can take 4 different forms:

1. The system calls the student at the beginning of the exam and asks the student to read a passage that appears on the screen.
2. The system calls the student at a random point during the exam and asks the student to verbally answer a previously answered exam question.
3. The system calls the student at a random point during the exam and asks the student to verbally explain why a given choice on a previously answered multiple-choice question is incorrect.
4. The system calls the student at a random point during the exam and asks the student to verbally answer a “challenge question,” which is a derivative of a previously answered question using altered fact patterns.

NON-College Course List (Free)

Courses on this list are entirely free (no proctored exam) and result in a digital badge that you can display on your social media profile. You can also use these courses for high school credit.

• Business Operating Agreements
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Nonprofit Organizations Law
• Securities Regulation
• Stocks and Stock Transfers
• Debtor and Creditor Law
• Criminal Sentencing and Appeals
• Counterterrorism Law and Policy
• Negotiating and Drafting Contracts
• Social Security
• Employment and Employee Benefits
• Leaving a Job
• Alimony and Child Support
• Child Custody and Visitation
• Freedom of Speech
• Freedom of Religion
• Education Law: Responsibilities and Protections
• Acquiring Copyright Protection
• Copyright Enforcement and Defenses
• Medicare
• Fair Housing Act
• Landlord-Tenant Law
• Real Estate Transactions
• Residential Mortgages
• Land Use and Zoning
• State and Local Taxation
• Vicarious Liability (Liability for the Torts of Others)

HS4CC PARENT AMY WRITES THIS ABOUT HER SON’S EXPERIENCE:

“LawShelf is a fairly new opportunity for earning affordable college credits. My son is pursuing a BSLA degree at Excelsior College. He’s enrolled at Excelsior and has transferred in 56 credits so far. The most recent 3 credits he earned were through LawShelf. LawShelf offers course equivalency lists for partner schools. The classes on these equivalency lists are guaranteed to transfer to the partner school. My son and I looked through the list and he is very interested in the classes offered. In fact, he wants to take all of them and transfer several to Excelsior for credit. He decided to start off with the Basics of Criminal Law class. The classes are broken into modules. This particular class has five modules and two case studies. The modules are fairly short videos, and each has corresponding, optional quizzes. I highly recommend having your learner take the quizzes before progressing through the modules. The quizzes don’t count toward the grade in the class, but they help ensure competency and full understanding of the material. Building that foundation is important since the modules build on learned concepts and vocabulary. The case studies were longer than the modules and each was about an hour in length. They fascinated my son and he watched them over breakfast. They also have optional, corresponding quizzes. He printed these too and filled them in to use for the exam. My son also copy/pasted the transcripts for each module and case studies into a single document so he could easily use control-F(ind) during the exam to review material to help him answer the exam questions. The exam is open book/open notes, and they even allow you to use Google. The goal is for the learner to know how to find the data and interpret it into concepts they can apply to real-life scenarios. The initial proctor setup requires a valid government ID. We went to SOS to obtain one for my son but only had the paper ID at the time he was ready to take the exam. I wrote to support and they allowed him to use the paper ID along with a homeschool ID. The process was fairly simple. He had to use his webcam to hold up his IDs and he had to read a passage that was displayed on the screen. He’s dyslexic so that meant a couple of mistakes the first two times, but the verification allows you to re-try the recording of yourself reading the passage. Honestly, they wouldn’t have cared about the mistaken words, but he did. It’s just trying to sample the voice. Once he submitted the voice proctoring setup, he received an email the next day stating he was all set and could take the exam. He kept his phone near him during the exam and it called him at one point to have him read a passage on the screen. I’ve heard it sometimes asks a question, or to explain one of your prior answers. The correctness isn’t important…just the voice. In the end, you receive a score that gives you a percentage and you’ll be notified in email when you can claim your badge and request a transcript. Transcripts are sent through Parchment, so we paid the $5 to have it sent right away, although you can gather up credits and have them all sent at once instead if you prefer. The class videos and case studies were very interesting for my son and he’s excited to take more classes through LawShelf. He completed this first one in a week.” -Amy S. (HS4CC Parent in Michigan)

Accelerated Bachelor’s Degree Option (2024)

Law Shelf’s partnership with the National Paralegal College offers an accelerated Bachelor’s of Business Administration degree using mostly Law Shelf Courses and credit that can be earned during high school (or after, by an adult). 

Students may choose a concentration in Business Law or Human Resources.

A student can complete 75% of this degree using Law Shelf courses. This can be done during or after high school. The cost to complete 90 credits with Law Shelf is approximately $900. 

National Paralegal College also accepts AP, CLEP, and dual enrollment, so parents may wish to resourcefully plan those credits alongside Law Shelf courses for even more credit transfer. At the time of this writing, NPC does not publicly identify a credit transfer maximum or a degree completion residency minimum that dictates how many of the 120 credits can be outsourced. COLLEGE CATALOG

Upon high school graduation, the student enrolls with the National Paralegal College and completes any remaining college credits. 

If the student takes the remaining 30 credits with National Paralegal College (online) is approximately $10,000. National Paralegal College courses are live and online each week. Students get to interact with each other and faculty during class. Weekly sessions are recorded, so students who can not attend live can still watch later.

National Paralegal College is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) Nationally accredited degrees are legitimate degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education but may have limitations related to state licensing requirements or graduate school admissions that regionally accredited college degrees do not encounter.

National Paralegal College participates in the Title IV Federal Financial Aid Program. Degree program students who qualify may receive Federal Pell Grants, Direct Subsidized, Unsubsidized and/or Parent Plus Loans, to cover tuition and related expenses.