We Built a Free 8-Week Neurolaw Curriculum. It Is Yours to Use.

We get a version of the same message fairly regularly. A student finds Mind on Trial, reads a few posts, and then asks some variation of the same question: how do I actually learn this? Where do I start? Is there a way to go through this with other people?

We built the answer.

Starting today, Mind on Trial is releasing a free, structured 8-week Introduction to Neurolaw curriculum for high school students, school clubs, independent learners, and educators who want to bring this material into the classroom. It is available right now at mindontrial.org, and it costs nothing to use.

What it covers

The curriculum is built around eight of the most important questions in neurolaw, each anchored by a published Mind on Trial case analysis and a real court case. Week one starts at the beginning, asking what neurolaw actually is and why it matters. Week two goes straight into the landmark Roper v. Simmons decision and what adolescent brain development science has to do with constitutional law. From there the curriculum covers memory and eyewitness testimony, false confessions, algorithmic bias in sentencing, the insanity defense, solitary confinement, and neural data privacy. Eight weeks. Eight cases. Eight sets of questions designed to produce genuine disagreement and genuine thinking.

Every week follows the same format. Ten minutes to read the anchor article, either together or in advance. Twenty minutes to walk through the case and the neuroscience concept. Twenty minutes of discussion using three questions we wrote specifically to not have easy answers. Five minutes to apply the Neuro-Legal Case Analysis Framework, asking what each of the three lenses says about the case you just discussed. The whole session runs 45 to 60 minutes. No prior experience in neuroscience or law is required.

Who it is for

If you are a student who wants to go deeper than what you find in a typical classroom, this curriculum is for you. If you are trying to start a Mind on Trial chapter or a neurolaw discussion club at your school, this is your starting point. If you are a teacher or club advisor looking for structured material on the intersection of brain science and criminal law, this is free, downloadable, and ready to use.

We designed it to be used with other people because the questions it raises are better worked through in conversation than in isolation. But it works just as well as an independent reading guide if that is what you need.

Why we made it

Mind on Trial exists because neuroscience, human behavior, and the law belong in conversation with each other. Most people who encounter that conversation for the first time do not know where to enter it. We wanted to build a door.

The curriculum is also the foundation of Mind on Trial's chapter program. Every Mind on Trial chapter runs on this material. If you want to bring a chapter to your school, this is what your first eight meetings look like. Download it, show it to a faculty advisor, and fill out the interest form at mindontrial.org. We will take it from there.

How to get it

The full curriculum is available as a free PDF download at mindontrial.org/resources/curriculum. Every week includes the anchor reading, the case, the key neuroscience concept, and the three discussion questions. Everything links back to the full published analysis on the blog so you can go as deep as you want.

If you use it, we want to hear about it. Email us at info@mindontrial.org and tell us who you are, where you are, and what you are doing with it. We read everything we receive.

Mind on Trial is a youth-led nonprofit publication at the intersection of neuroscience, behavior, and law. The curriculum is one of four pillars of our work alongside case analyses, science explainers, policy advocacy, and The Open Verdict literary journal. Everything is free at mindontrial.org.