Outlining in Law School: How I Outline Law School Classes

We're headed for the end of the semester, now! (Well, we were at the time I was writing this...) It's coming up fast, and I'm definitely not prepared for it.  For all of you out there who need some pointers on outlining law school classes, here are my tips and how I approach the outlining process.

First of all, I'm sure you've heard tons of people saying that you need to get started right away at the beginning of the semester. That's just not true. If that's the kind of person you are and starting to study right away is what works for you, great! Keep doing you. If you're like me, you do not get started with studying until the last minute. At least that's what I did in undergrad. I'm telling you now, you can NOT leave studying for law school until the last minute. But you don't have to get started right away, either.

The ideal timeline for outlining is to have it done by Thanksgiving, so that way you can start to use your studying time for taking practice exams and just updating your outlines as class continues. I know plenty of people who don't start until Thanksgiving break, but they mostly have their outlining done by the end of the break. As a 1L, fall semester will really give you a sense of how long it takes you to finish an outline. For me, I started around mid-October, but I didn't work on it consistently, so I had a lot of catching up to do at Thanksgiving. However, I still had outlining done by the end of the break, so I could start studying the material.

Now that you know you don't have to freak out if you haven't started outlining yet, here's why you do need to start ahead of time, not at the last minute. Professors teach new material until the very end of the semester - that means adding to your outline after the last day of class! If you are far behind when you get to the end, you're just adding more work for yourself, and spending the time that you could be using actually studying the material and taking practice exams.

Outlining also takes longer than it seems. You're not just putting the information you've learned into a list - you have to spend time organizing it in a way that makes sense to you. The timing varies a lot depending on the person, but it took me a full day to develop my outline for one class covering material from the beginning of the semester all the way to Thanksgiving break. Furthermore, outlining is the first step in studying. Most law students I know absorb the most of the material while developing their outlines. You're also figuring out if you understand the material or if you need to seek extra help.

Now we can get started on the good stuff: how do I approach outlining?

In an ideal world, I work on my outline after finishing a major topic in a class. However, I'm a huge procrastinator, so usually I don't really get started until near the end of the semester (like Thanksgiving break or spring break). That actually works fine with my studying style, because I like to step back and look at the big picture before getting down in the details. I try to figure out the class as a whole before getting in to specific topics. I write down all the major topics of the class, usually in the order in which the professor taught the material. But if a different order makes more sense to you, you do you!

So once I feel good about my outline of the major ideas, I dig in deep. I take each major topic in order and work my way down from the big ideas until I get into the specific rules, exceptions, and special circumstances. I worry about rules first, because most professors are looking to know that you absorbed the rules and can apply them to different situations. Then I look at cases and see which ones are the most important. Usually these are the ones we spent more time on during class or which give solid examples of how the rules get applied. The last thing I think about are any policy considerations for the rules that we talked about in class. While the policies behind the rules are important, they are usually more important for understanding the rules than applying them. But if you've got a question that could really go either way, the policy could help tip one side.

The other thing to think about is visuals. I like using flow charts in my outlines. Some of my classmates use tables and charts of cases. Others like using lots of colors to make things stand out, like post-its and highlighters. Most of us try to write down things that professors put emphasis on word-for-word, since everyone likes to hear themselves recited back to them.

You should try to make page-turning the least time-consuming thing that bogs you down in the exam. Small margins, small text, etc.

The more time and effort that you put into your outline, the lower the chances are that you will need to rely on it during the exam. If you're spending a lot of time with the material while working on your outline, you should know it well enough when you get to the exam that you can spend more time actually writing the exam.

My biggest tip is no one will see this outline except you, so make your outline in the way that helps you, not anyone else. Just because one person got As on all their exams doesn't mean their way of studying is what works for you. If you developed a system in undergrad, you should feel free to keep using that system, or adapt that system to fit the different style of law school exams. You know what works best for you!