As the semester comes to an end, students scramble to complete their course outlines. If students fail to understand the purpose of outlining, however, these efforts can be a waste of time. First and foremost, outlining is part of the review process and should be done on a weekly basis throughout the semester. But, if you haven’t been outlining diligently throughout the semester (which can be quite common), don’t despair! Here are few tips that can help you get back on track.
Focus on Rules, not on Cases – The most common mistake I see when reviewing course outlines is documents that are full of facts about the cases. If you don’t know already, most professors do not require you to reference the facts from individual cases on your exams. There are, of course exceptions, so ask your professors for more detail on this point.
Assuming for a moment that your professors follow the majority approach, they will want to see correctly defined legal principles on your bluebook exams. If that’s true, then having lots of details from the cases in your outline is not very helpful. This is particularly true if your outline looks like a series of case briefs where the cases dominate and the holding is buried somewhere in the middle of the brief.
Instead, flip this orientation on its head. Reduce the case down to a single sentence that represents your takeaway message. This takeaway message will be some variation of the rule announced by the case. Do not simply delete the facts (or reasoning) from the cases, however, because they still have a role. Once you have extracted the rule, the material facts from the case act as an illustration of when that rule will apply. The facts, in a sense, define the rule, but do not include every fact from the case in your illustration. Before including additional material from the cases, ask yourself a simple question. Was this information relevant to the court’s resolution of the case? In most instances, all you need is 2-3 sentences from a case to help illustrate the rule. Don’t be afraid to cut out unnecessary material. Because making these sorts of judgments is an important step in developing your analytical skills.
Create an Outline that is Relational, Not Chronological – Particularly when they are pressed for time, students tend to create an outline that chronologically lists cases in the order they were discussed in class. This may be appropriate in some instances, but keep in mind that professors often have pedagogical reasons for teaching material in a certain order. For example, my contracts professor – a long, long time ago - started the course with the concept of damages. This made sense because it was a relatively straightforward concept that we, as new 1Ls, could handle early in the semester. It made no sense, however, to begin my outline with this topic because damages are the end of the contracts story.
The processor of organizing an outline chronologically and logically is much easier if you follow my first step of focusing on rules, not cases. With the rules at the top of each case discussion, it is much easier to see which rules are related to each other. In some instances, the relationship will take this form - a rule, exceptions to that rule, and jurisdictionally different approaches to the rule. This is the simplest level of organization.
Another level of organization might, for example, illustrate the order in which you should address concepts. Using civil procedure as an example, the general idea of subject matter jurisdiction would come before the individual concepts of arising under jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction. Then, I would address diversity jurisdiction and its attendance principles – domicile and its definition, complete diversity, corporate diversity (dual domicile), amount in controversy, etc. Once I have completed this section, I am ready to work on arising under jurisdiction as a separate, but related, concept.
This approach of categorizing and organizing will help your exam performance in two important ways. First, it will be much easier to remember the concepts if they are organized in a logical way as opposed to a long list of several dozen ideas. Second, exam answers will follow, at least partially, the organization in your outline. The organized principles will act like a path or trail in the woods, which will keep you (and the professor reading your bluebook exam) from getting lost.
Include the Hypos – Be sure that your outline includes every hypo used in class. Organizationally, the hypos act like the cases – they are just another illustration of the application of a rule to a set of factual circumstances. The hypos may be even more valuable than the cases, however, because they are strong indicators that your professor thinks a rule needs further explanation. If a rule is worthy of further explanation, a fact pattern addressing the issue is worthy of inclusion on an exam.
Shorten the Outline as Exams Approach – A long outline is not a problem as long as you have been diligent about removing irrelevant material. Initially, a longer outline will help you reconnect with principles that were covered weeks, or even months, earlier in the year. As exams approach, shorten the outline. You can save the larger version as a reference tool in a separate file. Eventually, a 40+ page outline can be reduced down to a couple of pages in the days immediately before an exam. These few remaining pages represent the course’s key ideas and organizational concepts. Finally, memorize this “skeletal” outline and use it to organize your examination answers.
Professor Herbert N. Ramy
ASP Director
Suffolk University Law School
