Creating Outlines

The benefit of an outline is derived in the process of creating the outline more so than the outline itself. An outline is essentially a roadmap of the material, condensed and focused based on what you were taught in class. Over the course of a semester students gradually learn the concepts and how each relates to the material as a whole. Outlining is a method of integrating the concepts and finding the connections. Students who use outlines they did not create may be able to get through an exam simply memorizing the black letter law (BLL), but that student will be at a disadvantage relative to the students who put the time and effort into creating their own outlines.

The nuts and bolts of outlining…

Start with your notes. Depending on how the class was organized and the lectures were structured you can use your own notes as a roadmap for your outline, or the syllabus or even the table of contents from the class text. The topic headings in your outline should be the BLL, as described by your professor and supplemented by reference materials. Under each header, briefly describe the major legal concepts (including the grey areas and conflicting authority) and the major cases that elucidate those legal concepts. If there are any cases that your professor spent a great deal of time on, be sure to include those cases and a write a longer discussion of the facts, procedural posture, and relevance of those cases. Remember that the professor expects everyone to know the BLL cold before sitting for the exam. The professor is not testing your memorization skills. You are being tested on whether you can think like a lawyer. That means recognizing issues and applying the law to those issues in a way that recognizes the obvious and teases out nuance. Know the rules, know the exceptions and know where the murky areas are so that you can argue both sides.

You must also know how the professor conceptualizes the issues. You cannot get this from a commercial outline. You can only get this from sitting down with your notes and grinding out an outline. Where your notes are unclear, go to a commercial outline or a trusted friend or a hornbook. You can also show up at your professor’s office hours or to a review session and use that time to get clarity on any outstanding issue.

Rule of Thumb: not too long (don’t re-write the book) and not too short. 20 to 40 pages is the consensus.