Creating a Course Outline for Law Students

For each class, we strongly recommend that you create your own course outline based primarily on your notes and briefs. While it is possible to wait until classes are over and to create your outline while studying for finals, it is much better to work on your outline periodically during the term, bringing it up to date every few weeks or so. That way you will not be overwhelmed by a massive amount of work at the end of the term.

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Why Your Course Outline is Necessary

Creating your own outline organizes the course information and reinforces it in your mind. The course material is reinforced as you re-read your notes and briefs, as you think about how the material fits into the overall scheme of the subject matter, and as you physically write or type out the outline. Each step in outlining imprints the voluminous material on your mind again and increases the probability that you will remember it at exam time. Additionally, as you struggle to organize the course material into a coherent framework for your outline, you may come to understand it better. Just thinking about it again may lead to new insights or cause mental light bulbs to flash in a new way. Being able to review the material as part of a larger whole (in the context of what has gone before and what has come after) also enhances your understanding of it.

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Creating an outline also helps to reduce the massive materials you will cover into a text of distilled legal principles of manageable length. You cannot possibly reread your 1,000 page (or more) contracts casebook while studying for finals; even if you could, you could not retain the large volume of information you had just read. Furthermore, even if you could memorize the entire book, much of the information would be useless and irrelevant detail that is of no help to you come test time. You can, however, read and reread a 40-page outline of your contracts course, containing all relevant rules and principles, many times just prior to taking your exam. Viewed in this way, the critical advantage offered by outlining is apparent.

If you are somewhat compulsive and have the time, you can outline week-by-week during the term. On balance, we do not recommend that you spend that much time in this endeavor. We do recommend that during the term you make a substantial effort every few weeks to outline the material already covered by your classes. This lessens the amount of outlining you will have to do later while getting you started when the early material is still fresh in your mind. Try to schedule your outlining intelligently by staggering it so you do not burn yourself out by having to outline all your classes at once.

The vast majority of the information that you will incorporate into your outline will come from your class notes and briefs. To fill in any gaps, you may need to read certain portions of the casebook over again or use a commercial outline.

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Organizing Your Outline

The organization of the outline should reflect your personal understanding of the material covered. In most cases, the organization will flow naturally from the order in which the professor presented the material, although the degree to which this is true varies depending upon the professor. Your notes from classes taught by some especially fastidious types will already be very similar to outlines. Some professors practically outline the course for you on the blackboard every day. Classes taught by other types of professors will require greater effort to organize the material.

If you are confused about how to organize the course material in your outline, look at the table of contents in your casebook and/or a commercial outline. Use these as guides along with your notes and briefs. Remember that your outline should reflect your understanding of the material, not somebody else's understanding. If this approach still does not help, try to borrow another (successful) students outline and copy it.

The size and detail of your outline will vary with the volume of course material and with individual preference as to the amount of detail necessary for effective reinforcement. Generally, handwritten outlines covering a one-semester, first-year class that met three hours per week seem to fall into the 25-45 page range. Except for constitutional law classes, where the legal principles involved are much more abstract and often involve a balancing of competing policies, extensive details of individual cases usually do not belong in the outline. You should be looking for the principles and rules that the cases stand for, not all the factual details of individual cases. Remember that your outline is your road map for the final exam, so make it as complete as it needs to be.

Having a computer to create your outlines is very helpful, if you can afford to purchase one. Some distributors sell software specifically designed to help law students organize their course material into outlines. Such software is not necessary, however. What is necessary is a good word-processing program like WordPerfect or Microsoft Word. A computer and such software will save you a lot of time and make organizing your outline easier.

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