Law School (2 Viewers)

[SaintsFan11]

What exactly is the deal with outlines? Do you buy them? Make them? Get them from other students? I've heard them mentioned several times, but don't know what the hell anyone is talking about.

 

[Tazman]

What exactly is the deal with outlines? Do you buy them? Make them? Get them from other students? I've heard them mentioned several times, but don't know what the hell anyone is talking about.

All three. I mostly bought them.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

What exactly is the deal with outlines? Do you buy them? Make them? Get them from other students? I've heard them mentioned several times, but don't know what the hell anyone is talking about.

Well, I dated a girl throughout law school who was a social butterfly so I got most of mine from her in return for helping her study. If you're on law review, that's a pretty good place to get outlines -- also your moot court team will be a good place to start scoping out who's got sharp tools in the shed upstairs. I always preferred outlines from people I had had classes with before but those can be tough to come by consistently -- in any case, the main thing is to be sure to get an outline from someone who had the same professor as you -- different teachers focus on different priorities.

First year you will probably have to buy them, but see if you can make some (drinking) acquaintances who are in their second year -- even if they haven't kept copies, they can probably steer you in the direction of the resident Radar O'Reilly (or "Red" if you prefer The Shawshank Redemption) who is doing a lively for-profit business on the side. Of course, all my experience was over 20 years ago -- with that new-fangled internet thingy, I'm sure it is a much more efficient process though Craig's List or something similar.

 

[Sardonios]

What exactly is the deal with outlines? Do you buy them? Make them? Get them from other students? I've heard them mentioned several times, but don't know what the hell anyone is talking about.

It's basically an outline of the course notes, distilled down to the core concepts, (very) brief notes on landmark cases, and the rules/exceptions that you've picked up from the course. I tried to keep mine down around 15-30 pages (in outline form, so it's not really that long). Sometimes you'll hear people bragging about their 100 page outline...that really defeats the purpose.

Like Taz said, most people do all three. During your 1L year, you'd definitely be doing yourself a huge favor by making and revising (and revising...) your own. Keep it fairly skeletal your first few weeks and try to flesh it out a bit once you've got your bearings (All 1Ls waste a lot of effort during the first few weeks of school, it's just the natural way of things; I think that trying to keep a fully-formed outline for, say, the first 4 weeks of 1L year is one of those exercises in futility).

Find out if you're allowed to bring outlines into your exam and tailor it accordingly.

Outlines from past students are very helpful for studying and seeing the forest for the trees (to that end: the earlier you can get one the better), but if you rely solely on them, you won't force yourself to piece together the information you've been given and see how it fits into the course. Making your own outline is the best way to learn the core material and to begin filtering the less important information (which comprised about 95% of my first semester notes).

Commercial outlines help you track down any important details you might've missed. These become much more useful by 2L year when most people abandon outline-writing or at least trim them significantly unless the exam is closed-book, open-outline. By 3L year, you abandon reading, note-taking, going to class, studying; commercial outlines are the course. It's a hard life.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

Find out if you're allowed to bring outlines into your exam and tailor it accordingly.

WHAT!! Next thing you'll tell me is that you no longer are penalized a half letter grade for being unprepared or missing more than 10% of your class days............

 

[Sardonios]

WHAT!! Next thing you'll tell me is that you no longer are penalized a half letter grade for being unprepared or missing more than 10% of your class days............

Penalized for missing class??? These primative ways of which you speak frighten and yet intrigue me. Please, go on...


In all honesty, I've only had two professors with any attendance policy and only one enforced it. The ABA requires every student attend at least 80% of the scheduled lectures to get credit in the course, but no one ever follows that. My roommate, for example, hasn't made it to Con Crim Pro since the first day of class, when he went to pick up his syllabus.

As for being unprepared...I'll just say "pass" is a perfectly appropriate response to "Mr. X, give us the facts of Brown," as long as you're not a 1L.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

Penalized for missing class??? These primative ways of which you speak frighten and yet intrigue me. Please, go on...

Well, I went to Loyola back in the mid-80's -- if you read my post above you will know that I was very underwhelmed with the quality of the education I received there.

Anyway, in a quite ineffective overreaction to their ceaseless 3rd place finishes on the state bar exam pass rate, they decreed that students would get one unprepared "pass" for the semester, with each unprepared effort thereafter being penalized with a one-half letter grade decline in the final semester grade. In conjunction with that, they instituted a similar policy for skipping class. I seem to recall that the cut-off was 10%, but it could be that I am thinking of the 20% cut-off that you mentioned -- either way, it was issued as a clearly stated, formal policy that they promised would be enforced.

It certainly sucked for me, particularly considering that I was carrying a full-time load while also working a full-time job and a part-time job on the side. But, I have to admit, it did hone my reading comprehension/issue spotting/bull****ing skills to a very fine edge ---- as soon as someone was called on for a case, I'd move on to read and book-brief the next. That skill has definitely paid dividends over the last 20+ years......

 

[Tazman]

For my last semistar of my third year I decided for some strange reason (well the class was going to end in mid April, so it was nice to get one of the classes out of the way-with exam done-one month before the actual end) to take an 8 a.m. seminar, and since the only night we did not go out was Monday, I missed a few classes in a row. The professor called me in and said if I missed another class he would flunk me (which would mean I would not graduate), and even if I made the rest of the classes, he doubted I would pass. One of my housemates was in that class (who missed more classes than me, but since he did not miss them in a row, got away with it), so I got his notes and preceded to ace the exam. I would have loved to have seen his face when he saw the grade.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

....so I got his notes and preceded to ace the exam. I would have loved to have seen his face when he saw the grade.

I had a somewhat similar experience. First semester, I get top exam paper in Contracts and the prof has to look me up in the facebook because he didn't have a clue who I was (I was one of those back-row snarkmasters making comments about all the jack-in-the-boxes).

Anyway, at the very beginning of the next semester, a group of us are talking in the hall and this prima donna prof walks up, says hello, and proceeds to tell the group about how I got top grade and he had to look me up to see who I was. The conversation progresses to law school academic success in general and he says: "I understand the consistently good students and I understand the consistently bad students, but I don't understand the ones who are all over the map." So I say, "That's interesting, because last semester I got a B+, a C+, and a D --- the only A I got was in your class." The absolutely shocked and crestfallen look on his face was priceless and one of the best "frozen moments in time" of my life! He assumed that if I aced his "difficult" class, then I just had to be the next Clarence Darrow. I could tell that he was mortified every time he saw me for the next 3 years.

 

[SaintsFan11]

Since this thread is still hanging around, I have another question.

My scholarship says I have to maintain a 3.0 GPA. (If I don't have a 3.0 the first year, I get a year to bring it up and still recieve half of the scholarship amount.) How hard was/is it to get a 3.0 (at your law school)? Where would a 3.0 put you in your class?

 

[Saint Mike]

What exactly is the deal with outlines? Do you buy them? Make them? Get them from other students? I've heard them mentioned several times, but don't know what the hell anyone is talking about.

As others have already stated, all three will come into play during your law school career. I cannot stress the importance of making your own outlines your first year. This forces you to really study and understand the material. It is helpful to have commercial outlines to use as a reference but not to rely on them solely. Also, in most first-year classes you will have to brief cases. You will be tempted by others to buy canned briefs from the bookstore instead of doing your own---do not do this. You'll have plenty of time third year to goof around so buckle down in your first year and work hard. Best of luck to you in law school. Don't hesitate to ask any questions that you might have. I'm more than happy to help if I can--- as I'm sure the other attorneys on the board are.

 

[Hoyasaint]

I never used an outline/study aid from the bookstore. Just my own hard work. Was certainly an easier, and cheaper way to do it for me.

 

[HoustonSaint68]

Since this thread is still hanging around, I have another question.

My scholarship says I have to maintain a 3.0 GPA. (If I don't have a 3.0 the first year, I get a year to bring it up and still recieve half of the scholarship amount.) How hard was/is it to get a 3.0 (at your law school)? Where would a 3.0 put you in your class?

Well, you chose Tulane and, as I said earlier, the old saying was "You pay your fees, you get your B's" -- the story behind that was that Tulane did not require a certain minimum grade distribution below a "B", whereas LSU and Loyola did. Perhaps that has changed or was just an urban legend to begin with.........

 

[JimEverett]

Since this thread is still hanging around, I have another question.

My scholarship says I have to maintain a 3.0 GPA. (If I don't have a 3.0 the first year, I get a year to bring it up and still recieve half of the scholarship amount.) How hard was/is it to get a 3.0 (at your law school)? Where would a 3.0 put you in your class?

If I remember correctly a 3.0 at Tulane would probably be just below the middle of the class. I think a 3.1-3.2 was the median and/or average. Or it could have been the other way: 2.8-2.9 was the median/mean. I think it was the former but I do remember that 3.0 was either right below or right above.

I don't know how other schools are but at Tulane I think about, maybe a little less, a quarter of the people flunked out the first year (either first or second semester). The school told us it was a third, but I think that was on the high end. So it certainly wasn't a case of paying your fees and getting your Bs. I got a several grades less than a B.

 

[Hoyasaint]

Just spoke with a friend who graduated last year and historically a 3.0 is dead middle. On top of that he said if you screw the pooch, they'll jsut take some of your scholarship away. Which you can earn back.