Outlines for law school?

[imgoingtolawschool]

I finally got my S*^T together and am going to law school starting in January. I have a question....how useful are outlines? Should I buy them before I get to school or wait? should I do my own? What are your experiences with this? thanks!!

[SteelyDan]

Outlines = boss. Couldn't have survived without them. I used commercial ones, but a lot of schools will have outlines available for free on their servers and libraries. GL!

[Jeffort]

Outlines are very important for study and review, especially leading up to finals (and mid-terms if a class administers them).  

Commercial outlines are a decent resource for the standard black letter law of each subject.  However, they may cover more or less than what the professor taught, expects you to know and might test you about on the final exam.  

Get outlines from students that took the same class from the same professor previously (written by a student that achieved a high grade in the class) if you can. Each professor has favorite areas/topics/issues within the subjects they teach and has views/opinions/dispositions about them.  You need to tune into the areas of law within the subject that the professor emphasizes/thinks are important since he/she will most likely include them in the final exam.  

Commercial outlines do not provide a personalized and focused point of view regarding what a particular professor cares about, is likely to include in the final or about what he/she may like or not like when grading exams.
 
Spend some time doing research in the law school library to find available materials regarding the class taught by your professor.  Previous exams with model answers and/or top graded student exams from previous semesters are a goldmine.  Most good law schools have these available in the library.