0L here - Question about outlining Forum

[corporatelaw87]

So I've read on here that sometimes you can acquire outlines from old students or that SBA has a bank of old outlines. I would imagine this could be helping in forming your own, maybe in terms of formatting or even in some cases content. My question is could you model your outline off an outline that doesn't have your professor, or even not at your school (this is only if you think it's particularly good). On another note, I have always heard that you shouldn't use other outlines that weren't from your professors old class. What I don't get is the law is the law how do all these professors differ in their explanations of it. Lastly, I've been on some schools outline bank site looking at old outlines. It seems all of them for 1L classes are around 50 pages. How do you guys condense to so little, like 15 pages?

[Cavalier]

Professors always cover different things, so using an outline from another professor's class as a study guide or even as a model for your own would be a bad choice, IMO. However, many outlines contain great explanations of certain concepts and case that you may have covered in your class, so copying parts from them can be useful. If my notes, the casebook, and a commercial supplement do not help me understand a concept or case that we covered in class, I usually turn to other students' outlines (from any professor) - I will probably find an outline that explains it all in a concise, easy-to-understand form.

Condensing outlines is easy - you just turn it into a list of issues and arguments to raise on an exam.

[mikeytwoshoes]

Op, live your life and don't worry about this shit until.