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I'm taking Barbri. Should I create my own outline or is that a waste of time?

FWIW - I'm making my own on some topics just to better absorb the information. I also noticed that the outlines they provide seem unnecessarily wordy and cumbersome, so I try to make mine pretty bare bones so I can skim them and refresh my memory easily.

It's tough to say but I would say this should not be the default. You should attempt to learn the law otherwise (outlines, flashcards, etc), and only if you are really struggling with that should you consider other avenues such as creating outlines. Spend the time you would have spent creating outlines doing practice MBE questions or reading the old exams that your state (or the UBE) has released. Study smart, not just hard!

Sean (Silverman Bar Prep)
http://www.mbetutorial.blogspot.com

I think that creating your own outlines is a waste of time. The Barbri CMR has everything you need right there in front of you. What I found was that when I tried to truncate and shorten down the CMR, I would hit a practice question that showed that every word was in there for a reason, whether you realized it or not. I think the CMR has the shortest amount of text without losing the critical language.

Counter: I took notes on the lectures in outline-form and studied from those. I have never been able to study from pre-made outlines. It didn't take significantly longer than just doing the handouts - I took notes during the lectures instead, and maybe took a half hour a week tops to clean them up a little.

I agree you probably shouldn't take the time to create outlines from scratch on top of lectures and other practice stuff.