I have access to a bunch of former student's outlines and wanted to know how useful former student's outlines have been for you guys. I certainly take notes (and continue to plan on doing so), but some of the outlines I saw were really neat and well-organized making me think towards exam time it might be better just to review their outlines instead of going through the hassle of reorganizing mine and making it look pretty. (I compared their outlines to mine and my outline and theirs were mirroring the same information, but some were just much cleaner looking than mine) Is it a bad idea to do this or is it common practice?

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Yea, fortunately all of them fulfill (1) and (2). Oddly enough, I was thinking of doing exactly what you suggested in terms of a "roadmap", so definitely going to do that now.

Quite the score to have old outlines meeting both (1) and (2).

Some schools post them online as a matter of convenience. You might want to check.

I'm selling mine for sexual favors









































I'm kidding, take it easy... or put your pants back on. which ever of the two is appropriate.

TTT-LS is right. If for the same class by the same professor, they can be invaluable. On of our professors, one of our best, actually, used very similar material from years past, such that even his hypos were phrased in the same language that was used in the prior year's outline.

Make sure to check, if you use one, whether your professor will allow you to use such prior outlines during the final, however. One of our professors allowed use of outlines "prepared for this class" during finals, but clarified only a week before this test that "prepared for this class" meant "this class, this year, by you, individually or with citations where work of current classmates has been used." The policy was relaxed after some pleading.

Wow that policy seems like it would be nearly impossible to enforce.

I've looked at some of the outlines from students who had my teacher 8 years ago and I'm shocked at how nearly identical they follow my outline so far. I guess I shouldn't be that shocked---a lot of teachers are lazy just like the rest of us

probably more related to the fact that professors have strong opinions that rarely change, than that they are lazy.

Yea, but I mean at least they could change the freaking hypos a little bit, lol.

I'm sure this has already been said as I didn't read the thread, but the only outlines that were helpful to me were from students who had the same professor for that class and took it the year before. I have found most professors don't really change things that much from the last year, especially if they have been teaching the class for a while and aren't working out the kinks. That being said, I found commercial outlines helpful for some classes that generally followed the black letter law very closely throughout the semester.

Most schools' law reviews have their own (really good) outline banks. They probably won't have 1L curriculum there (wouldn't be helpful to law review members) but when you get into 2L and elective courses, make good friends with LR people if you aren't one. A kickass outline can be amazingly helpful, though it obviously won't replace old fashioned hard work.

I don't know about any other schools, but if you go to the homepage of Westlaw and sign in there is the option at the top called TWEN. In there are outlines for classes and they tell you what teachers they are for etc.