WTH is wrong with people and their outlines? Forum

[Emma.]

I knew a guy who would read every single case twice, and then he would write really long briefs for each case. He would also write 60-90 page outlines for most classes. He did so because he loved the law and all of its details.

He is clerking for the Supreme Court now.

I now use his outlines and get good grades.

Hook me up?

[88rabbits]

I knew a guy who would read every single case twice, and then he would write really long briefs for each case. He would also write 60-90 page outlines for most classes. He did so because he loved the law and all of its details.

He is clerking for the Supreme Court now.

I now use his outlines and get good grades.

Hook me up?

+1

[Paichka]

I think that the true utility of a course outline is in putting it together. I generally set up a bunch of tests and rules, trying to synthesize the case law into something that I can actually apply to a fact pattern -- cases get filled in as illustrations of a principle.

My outlines tend to be longer because of how I organize my exams -- thesis, then rule statement, then explanation of the rule, then application of the fact pattern to the rule, then restate my thesis. Organizing my outlines by rules allows me to quickly and easily regurgitate what I've already synthesized back into my exam, with helpful cases that I can use as illustrations and comparisons to the exam facts. So this semester, my Adjudicatory Crim Pro outline was 75 pages, while Ad Law was 40+. My Ad Law short outline was only 15, and my attack sheet was 3.

I tend to write long outlines first, then I break those outlines down into shorter attack sheets or checklists, which is what I actually use on my exam unless I need to discuss something more thoroughly. I'm one of those people that goes into an exam with a binder full of multicolored tabs -- a lot of the time I don't need everything I've prepared, but I'm always happy that I have it when I DO need it.

Anyway, the point is, it doesn't matter how long or short your outline is, as long as (a) it contains all of the information you need to dominate on test day; and (b) you can actually USE it on test day [organization is key].

[romothesavior]

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I outline I try to synthesize and see how things piece together. I try to be concise so if something comes up in an exam that sounds familiar but I can't quite place it I can flip through my outline and find the exact term or phrase I'm looking for. And quite frankly, the process of creating the outline is what really matters since that's when everything is refreshed in my mind.

Some of my 2L classmates like to constantly post on Facebook how they're constantly studying and outlining. No one can seem to figure out what the hell they're doing until 1 a.m. every night starting at five weeks before finals start. Today I got an answer, from one of their FB statuses:
"After 4 months of my semester pregnancy and tons of hours of labor with [redacted], I just gave birth to a 92 page poverty law outline. Proud mother, indeed."

First of all, poverty law sounds like the stupidest class ever. Second, what the hell is in this outline? Full briefs on every case? What could the possible utility of this outline be?

I wholeheartedly agree with you. My best outline is less than 10 pages. Anything over 25 is probably a waste. It's an outline, people... not just copy and pasted class notes.

[uzpakalis]

my outline can beat up your outline

[Sentry]

I knew a guy who would read every single case twice, and then he would write really long briefs for each case. He would also write 60-90 page outlines for most classes. He did so because he loved the law and all of its details.

He is clerking for the Supreme Court now.

I now use his outlines and get good grades.

Hook me up?

[random5483]

I have not had an "open outline" exam yet, so I can't comment on a 92 page open outline exam. For my classes last semester, my outlines were between 12-21 pages. This semester, my outlines are roughly the same length. But my outlines are for closed book exams so I make sure I know every single thing on it.


A well organized outline for an open book exam can be significantly longer than one for a closed book exam. In close book exams you, the outline should basically just have rule statements, and maybe a plan of attack for certain types of questions (or you can do that separately). For an open outline exam, I'd be tempted to make longer outlines.

[zeth006]

Hmp. MyCon law outline's 50 pages, but it's actually important because my prof's heavily fact-oriented on his exams. Wish this weren't AP US history on steroids.

But my Torts outline is about 40 pages and probably has more bloat than is needed. I guess that's where the checklists come in and compress everything down to the BLL.

[gwuorbust]

yeah my property outline was like 50 pages. on the exam I only looked at my checklist and page 50 on government taking.

regardless of how long your outlines is, I feel like you probably aren't going to be looking at it very much during the exam. so who cares?

[forty-two]

I feel like I'm the only person here who actually uses my outlines during exams. They're typically fairly long (25-60 pages depending on the class), but I always make a table of contents that I also use as a checklist. So, if I need to write about an issue and I can't think of a good way to phrase the rule, want to make a case analogy, or just want to double check the test I'm supposed to be using or a policy point my prof thought was important, I know exactly what page to flip to in order to get the relevant information. Idk, it just works for me...this just goes to show how different things work for different people and there is no one right way to do law school.

[keg411]

I also use my outlines, but I have two sets; longer outlines that are around 30 pages and have cases and stuff like that and short checklist and BLL outlines. I got my Property checklist down to 4-5 pages.

[AJaKe]

.

[XxSpyKEx]

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I outline I try to synthesize and see how things piece together. I try to be concise so if something comes up in an exam that sounds familiar but I can't quite place it I can flip through my outline and find the exact term or phrase I'm looking for. And quite frankly, the process of creating the outline is what really matters since that's when everything is refreshed in my mind.

Some of my 2L classmates like to constantly post on Facebook how they're constantly studying and outlining. No one can seem to figure out what the hell they're doing until 1 a.m. every night starting at five weeks before finals start. Today I got an answer, from one of their FB statuses:
"After 4 months of my semester pregnancy and tons of hours of labor with [redacted], I just gave birth to a 92 page poverty law outline. Proud mother, indeed."

First of all, poverty law sounds like the stupidest class ever. Second, what the hell is in this outline? Full briefs on every case? What could the possible utility of this outline be?

92 pages = weak. I had a couple outlines pushing 180-190 pages with .5" margins. But they were literally my class notes verbatim copied and pasted into a word document and some highlighting/bolding/reorganizing. I usually just made a simple checklist outline a few days before the actual exam and that would be all I referred to on the actual exam … Pretty much I would just read through the important parts (i.e. highlighted/bolded stuff) of the longer 180-190 page outline and then do any memorizing using the checklist outline, which was a really condensed version of the 180-190 page outline.

[whymeohgodno]

You people are insane. I've never written anything above 30 pages.

[flcath]

Aced Ks with a 6-page outline. My torts and crim were both under 4 pages.

I deliberately avoid writing in full sentences, though. And mine are on Notepad, which I think keeps things truncated. relative to a double-spaced Word document.

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

I feel like I'm the only person here who actually uses my outlines during exams. They're typically fairly long (25-60 pages depending on the class), but I always make a table of contents that I also use as a checklist. So, if I need to write about an issue and I can't think of a good way to phrase the rule, want to make a case analogy, or just want to double check the test I'm supposed to be using or a policy point my prof thought was important, I know exactly what page to flip to in order to get the relevant information. Idk, it just works for me...this just goes to show how different things work for different people and there is no one right way to do law school.

Hey now, I actually took 30 minutes to LEARN section 5 of the 14th amendment from an old outline, during my exam. So I feel like I deserve some recognition.