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Law School Outlines: Its All About

When You Start

When it comes to separating good law students from great ones, theres one
key difference: how they approach outlining.
While most students tend to worry about how to create law school
outlines, the better questions are when to start the process and what to
do with your law school outlines once youve created them.
In this article, youll learn:

Outlining basics
The importance of starting early
Creating your own outline
Outlining the outline of your outline (seriously)
Outlining tips
Law School Outlines: The Basics
An outline is an aggregation of the specific material assigned for a class,
organized so that you can access details quickly and understand broader
concepts.
The theory is that youll master complex and lengthy course material by
creating and working with law school outlines. Plus, many professors allow
you to use your outline during the exam.
There are lots of ways to create a law school outline. When thinking about
the structure of your outline, a good place to start is your professors
syllabus. As for content, most students use some combination of their class
notes and case briefs, and then systematically remove unimportant
information until only the essentials remain.
Some students start with another students outline and customize it to fit
their needs. The pros and cons of these two methods are discussed later.
Why Timing Is Everything
Almost every professor will tell you to start outlining early. Our research
shows that the vast majority of highly successful students prepare their law
school outlines throughout the term, yet most students dont start the
process until just before finals. They fall into the trap of constantly playing
catchup on daily reading assignments (something LearnLeos study
tools can help with).

Here are some outlining pointers we picked up in law school (and from
talking to a lot of professors and students):

Outline whole topics. Dont start outlining after week 1, since


you wont get anything out of it if you dont know any substantive
law. Instead, start outlining when your professor finishes the first
topic, then continue to outline in chunks as the semester
progresses. Cover the entire topic in your outline and build upon
your outline as your professor finishes subsequent topics.
Master each topic. After you outline a topic, talk to your
professor or study group while the material is still fresh in your
mind. Resolve any ambiguities and figure out the nuances so that
you have a firm grasp on the material. When finals roll around, you
may need to refresh your memory, but you wont have to relearn the
early material like the folks who havent outlined yet.
Ongoing review. As you add topics to your outline, review all
prior topics and make any necessary additions or references (as
many topics in a course may overlap with prior topics).
Reorganize. As finals approach, all youll need to do is outline the
last topic. Then analyze the overall structure of your outline and
consider reorganizing it to suit your understanding of the material.
Here are some common pitfalls that students encounter when they start
outlining late:
Using your outline. Creating your outline isnt enough; you need
to know it inside and out. Some students make the mistake of
finishing their outlines hours or minutes before the exam. Exams
have huge time pressure, so rifling through your outline looking for
things during the exam will end badly.
Practice exams. They are crucial for understanding how your
professor poses exam questions. Youll also want to test your
outlines under exam conditions and adjust them afterwards. Top
students take 3-4 practice exams (which take 4 or more hours each).
Other students take 1 if theyre luckythey spent too much time
outlining at the end of the term.
Time is short. Outlining a class from scratch will take 3-4 days
and practice exams take 1-2 days. Your study period is less than a
week and you have 3-4 days in between finals. You do the math.
Should You Create or Borrow Outlines?
Creating your own law school outlines from scratch is time consuming,
but it has advantages. Youll know the outline, learn a ton while creating it,
and find your style. Plus youll get faster at building your own. Once you
know how you like your law school outlines, it will be less risky to borrow
them in the future.
Just because you create, doesnt mean you shouldnt also borrow outlines.
Getting outlines from good sources can make your own outlines better.
They can provide ideas on formatting and style, help fill in details you
missed, and verify your understanding of key concepts.
Borrowing someone elses outline as the basis for your own sounds
appealing at first, but can be dangerous if you dont know your outlining
style. If you choose to go this route, then make sure you start with an
outline that is:
no more than a year old (professors do change their curricula,
especially if the book edition changes)
for the same professor (professors are idiosyncratic, thats why you
shouldnt start your outline with a commercial outline)
from someone who did well in the class

Next, customize the outline to suit your needs and style (which is why you
need to know your style). Many students will spend significant time
reorganizing, adding to, and annotating borrowed outlines, so budget time
for the process.
Finally, familiarize yourself with the converted outline. Arguably, you will
never get to know a converted outline as well as you would your own
outline, which is why we recommend building your own outline
at least once.
Tip: Try to get outlines from upperclassmen early in the semester. Their
outlines will give you a roadmap for the entire course. Having good outlines
early on will help you understand cases sooner, predict what the professor
will emphasize in class, and get a head start on your outline.
Create 3 Outlines for Each Course
Many law school professors and administrators recommend that you build
3 outlines for every coursea comprehensive outline, a condensed outline,
and a checklist. Creating each outline will force you to review the materials
at least 3 times and increase your mastery of the material. Ideally, on exam
day youll hardly need to refer to any outlines because you know the
material that well.
Step 1. Comprehensive Outline
This can be as simple as combining your course notes and case briefs into
an initial outline. Comprehensive outlines can be more than fifty pages
long, and should contain all the material covered. Including case facts is
useful during this stage, as it will help you to identify similar fact patterns
on the examprofessors love taking facts from existing cases and changing
them slightly to create exam questions. LearnLeos outline feature can
expedite this process.
Step 2. Condensed Outline
This is your primary outline for taking the exam. Most exams will permit
you to bring in as many notes as you wish, so you will be free to bring in
both your comprehensive and your condensed outlines. Most of your
exam time, however, should be spent using your
condensed outline. You should only use your comprehensive outline
to jog your memory about specific cases or fact patterns.
To build your condensed outline, start with your comprehensive outline
and cut it down to approximately 10 to 20 pages. Focus on rules of law and
specific steps of analysis that you can apply during your final. Cut most of
the facts and other details. Consider going from your topic and case driven
comprehensive outline to a topic and rule driven condensed outline as
exams will focus on your understanding of how to apply rules, rather than
the specifics of any given case. Some students also format portions of their
condensed outline into a flow chart or list step-by-step instructions with the
questions asked at each stage of the analysis along with the rules to apply
for each one.
Step 3. Checklist
Exams test both speed and command of the material. Your checklist
enables you to find information quickly under exam pressures. To create
your checklist, simply cut your condensed outline to 1-2 pages of topics,
subtopics, and processes for interpreting legal rules and concepts (youll
learn a ton of these).
During the exam, make a mark by each issue you spot and address. If you
get towards the end and have an empty patch on your checklist, then look
over the fact pattern againyou may have missed something.

5 Tips for Successful Outlining


1. Prepare responses for questions or issues you know will
appear on the exam. In your outline, write out rules and
explanations exactly as you want them to appear in your answer,
so you wont waste time crafting prose under exam pressure.
2. Identify grey areas in the law. Professors love to test on
areas where there is ambiguity in the law, requiring you to argue
both sides. Prepare the arguments for each side and add them to
your outline.
3. Know what your professor thinks. Professors love policy
questions. If your professor has written an article on the subject,
then be sure to read it and include a summary in your outline.
Professors tend love it when people agree with them.
4. If a principle or rule is counterintuitive, then be sure to
include it in your outline.Sometimes the law requires you to be
unfair. Professors like to test these principles.
5. Look for topics with no cases. Professors need to test
concepts that spread out the curve. They also understand that
students who fall behind tend to compensate by only reading
assigned cases, so professors like to test obscure theories with no
accompanying cases. If you find these tidbits, then put them in
your outlineit could mean the difference between an A and an
A+.

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