E&E versus Emmanuel Outlines...HELP

[plutoeyore]

Hi all! I will be a new 1L as of this fall. I read PLSII and am trying to follow as best as my budget allow...with four small children to provide for. I purchased used LEEWS over ebay to save some money.... now I need some good AD from you all... Do I really need both E&E primers and comm outlines(prob emmanuel) or can I cut some costs and just buy the E&E... Please share your thoughts.... experiences ...


Thanks again.

[unlvcrjchick]

Hey Pluto,

For me, I find that that both Emanuels and the Examples and Explanation series are necessary for me to maintain my sanity in a sea of confusion, which was created by my law school professors, who could not teach to save their damn lives.

The Emanuels series puts the black-letter law into an outline format, which is great for studying and giving you the big-picture aspect that you can so easily lose when you are reading individual cases, with not knowing how the principles gleaned from those cases fit into the grand scheme of things.

The Examples and Explanations series is more in-depth and to me is the best commercial resource for clarifying seemingly confusing principles, and then applying what you've learned by completing problems at the end of ever chapter (the examples).  Then you can check your answer with the explanations immediately after the problems (VERY helpful, believe you me).

So, you cannot compare Emaneuls with Examples and Explanations; apples to oranges. 

I would always study from both Emanuels and E&E before I tackled the case-book reading; this always facilitated my understanding of the material.  My first semester grades were an A minus, and 2 B's.  I don't yet know how I did this past semester (won't know until Monday, supposedly), but I do feel that I did better than last semester, since I no longer work.

However, I will caution you NOT to study too much this summer in order to "get ahead of the game."  Trust me, I tried this and it DID NOT adequately prepare me for the complete mind-@#!* experience that is more commonly known as the dreaded 1L syndrome.  By the way, I read both versions of Planet Law School, and MANY OTHER study guides; most of them are a complete waste of time.  BUT if you are determined to do some advance preparation for law school, I would highly suggest 2 things:  1) learn to type REALLY well (this will serve you well for note-taking and for the exam); and 2) hone your analytical-writing skills.  It does NOT have to be legal writing, that is a whole other animal.  Any kind of analytical writing will do.  All of your exams will be written, no multiple choice except on the rare occasion, so the better you write, the easier your experience.  I have classmates who knew the law COLD, but since they did not learn how to organize their thoughts come the 3-hour-monster of an exam, they did much poorly than they should have done.

That being said, I think you should primarily just relax and enjoy the freedom you have now.  You will regret it if you don't take the down time now...

Good Luck,
Sherry

[Coregram]

Just get the E&E's now.  They are written in a textbook style that is readable and have lots of practice questions and answers to get you into the mode of applying the law to the facts.  These are what you should be using if you are doing the summer prep.  And if money is short, just get one or two for now and work through them fto see if they are helpful.

The outlines are detailed; you might not even need them if you are good at taking notes and organizing what you learn during the semester.  And you might find you can do a good outline from the E&E books.  But if you need a commercial outline, you can get them during the semester when you really put together your professor/course specific outline.  You might even be able to find some in your school library or split the costs of them with study partners.

[jdohno]

You need both the commerical outlines and the E&Es for school. They serve two different purposes as the person above noted. I disagree with the poster above. I prepped via PLS2 last summer and DID very well this year. I'm in the process of transferring schools. The problem with preppping in the summer is that people try to memorize the law instead of using the prepping to prepare for legal analyis(ie learning to apply the law to fact patterns (hypos)) which is probably the most important thing you can on your exams. If you read both Leews and Delaney's How to do your best on exams which are recommended in PLS2 then you will be do well on your exams. Both books have systems that you need to practice throughout the semester on hypos and practice exams to strengthen your analyis and legal writing. If you have professors that like to do mulitple choice questions, then I recommend also the Finals Law School Exam Series or the Q&A books. But the Finals series are closer to the type of trick multiple choice exams that Professors love to give in law school.

You can buy Emmanuel Outlines used on Ebay, Amazon or half.com. Many of these books are cheaper than the list price and are in like new condition. Many 1Ls buy lots of additional materials to help them with their exams and then either don't have the time to use them or don't know how to use them. Personally, I think the Gilberts outlines are better than Emmanuel. But people go back and forth in their opinions about the two. Don't worry so much about typing fast. You shouldn't have to take a lot of notes in class if you study smart. Many times, my professors just repeat things in class that I already had in my reading notes. In class, you don't want to type down everything your professor says, just key things like his definition of the law, opinions about certain cases, etc. You will understand better when you start school.

Good luck with starting school in the fall. Law school takes a lot of work so I hope your family will be supportive of you. You will be spending a lot of time studying and reading. PLS2 isn't a magic bullet. It has an enomorous amount of resources to help you do well your first year. But you still have to work hard and study smart. Good luck.

[slacker]

I concur with the rest of the folks. Use the E&Es for prep, but you're probably going to want the outlines to help you with organization of the concepts. I found them especially useful for Torts and Civ Pro, neither of which were open book for me.

[S|]

What do you think of the BarBri outlines?  I have read LSC, PLS II, and am currently undergoing the PLS II prepping method.  The Barbri outlines seem to follow the E&E books quite well, and have multiple choice questions and hypos at the end of each topic.  I think a dose of each before I brief cases would enhance my understanding of the subject matter.

I have also heard getting High Court case summaries can help if you don't have time to brief cases. This brings me to my next question of whether it is completely necessary to brief Cases, if your practicing your lawyerly analysis by doing hypos then are you losing out by not briefing cases?

[jdohno]

The BarBri outlines are too detailed. It's unlikely that your professors will get into all of that stuff. And it's written for the BAR. What I like about Gilberts and some people have commented about in Emmanuels is that give you tips on what the professor is likely to test on and they give you pretty good graphs/flowcharts. The Barbri presupposes that you are already finished with your first year and are reviewing. The Gilberts and I guess Emmanuels are written for first year students. You get the Barbri outlines when you sign up for the course but I don't know too many people who used them.

Now if you go to a 3rd or 4th tier school, you might have professors that like to give multiple choice questions that resemble BAR questions. Then it might help to use the Q &A series or the Finals Law Schools series and maybe a few bar questions.

You get the "lawyerly analysis" from hypos not briefing. With briefing you are just pulling out the law from the case where you have the facts provided for you, etc. With hypos you are applying the law to the fact pattern. You are interweaving the law with the fact pattern. That resembles what you will be do on your exams. In hypos and on exams, you have to figure what facts are relevant to what law and then apply the law based on the facts. Most people stop briefing after they get back their first semester grades. If you are prepping using PLS2 then you should understand this. When you answer the questions in the E&Es, you are applying the law in the sections before the questions to the fact patterns. In the E&Es, with every question, they change the question or fact pattern slightly until you see the limits of the law or where it doesn't apply.

If you want to brief in school then you probably won't have a lot of time to do hypos. Briefing is just for you for class discussions. Hypos help you apply the law and see its limits and nuances. But some people just need to do briefing a few times to realize if it's a complete waste of time or not. If you choose to brief, be aware that you aren't ask to brief on your exams. Be aware that there is a disconnect from briefing and what you are supposed to do on an exam. One of the big problem I saw with people who didn't do well this year in school was that they got lost and pretty involved in the day to day law school stuff. The ones who kept their eyes on the longer view that exams are the only things that your grades are based did well this year. There are some people on this board who claimed briefing helped them. That's one point of view and my view is the other. You have to figure out what works for you and what you have time for. People usually change things around after they get back their midterms or first semester grades.

What do you think of the BarBri outlines?  I have read LSC, PLS II, and am currently undergoing the PLS II prepping method.  The Barbri outlines seem to follow the E&E books quite well, and have multiple choice questions and hypos at the end of each topic.  I think a dose of each before I brief cases would enhance my understanding of the subject matter.

I have also heard getting High Court case summaries can help if you don't have time to brief cases. This brings me to my next question of whether it is completely necessary to brief Cases, if your practicing your lawyerly analysis by doing hypos then are you losing out by not briefing cases?

[S|]

Since I am prepping with the PLS II method I have read Delaneys "Learning Legal Reasoning" which basically introduces you to the correct way to brief cases. After using this method for a while should i discontinue briefing?  I understand it is a highly indivualized process, but if you're not briefing then do you merely read the cases for class and move on?  Will you be totally prepared for the professors inqusition?

What I am striving for here is an approach to law school that reflects the pespective of someone who has already gone through the process. Basically, every step to this point I have said " I wish I knew all this before I started," so I  am hoping to learn enough of the reality of law school that I can run full speed without wasting time.

[jdohno]

But if you read the first chapters of PLS2, he explains the thing about Delaney's briefs. It sounds like you haven't read Leews yet which is towards the end of the prepping schedule. Once you have read Leews, a lot of your questions should be answered. Leews has a system for doing abbreviated briefing that works a bit better than the regular briefs. You're not going to be tested on all the 100 something cases you go over in class. The professor might ask you for the facts of the case and your issue statement.

Then he starts asking you questions that aren't even in your brief. He also might change the law a little and ask you more questions. For these two things, you don't need to have a regular brief. Just because you don't do a regular brief doesn't mean that you aren't reading the case and that you aren't writing something down. In law school, sometimes you don't even get to all the cases in the assigned reading in class. The professors stressed briefing so you can try to pull out the law in the cases even though the black letter law isn't in them. It's in bits and pieces and sometimes forms through three or four other cases in the chapter that refer to each other. I'm going to stop right here. I know everything seems confusing to you. Are you a member of the Yahoo group? A lot of your questions are answered in old posts over there. I don't know what else to tell you. I followed PLS2(in addtion to the prepping--if you read the beginning of the book then you should know what I mean) except for some changes to reflect my school and I did extremely well. It's really hard to do something different like hypos when everyone around you is doing briefing, etc. That's was hard for me to get over. I remember talking to some people from the Yahoo group offline about how lonely we felt because people at our schools were briefing and we were playing with hypos. I didn't have an idea that I was on the right track until I did a practice exam in early October and recognize many of the issues because I had seen similar fact patterns in hypos I had done.

I would hate for you to not find what works for you until after your first semester. I don't know what your goals are. My goal was to get high grades and transfer from my current school which I achieve. Every 1L on here will give a bunch of different opinions. You can go through all of them and figure out what you are going to do or you can do the PLS system. Or you can wait until you start school and figure out a combination of everything at the beginning of school.

Since I am prepping with the PLS II method I have read Delaneys "Learning Legal Reasoning" which basically introduces you to the correct way to brief cases. After using this method for a while should i discontinue briefing?  I understand it is a highly indivualized process, but if you're not briefing then do you merely read the cases for class and move on?  Will you be totally prepared for the professors inqusition?

What I am striving for here is an approach to law school that reflects the pespective of someone who has already gone through the process. Basically, every step to this point I have said " I wish I knew all this before I started," so I  am hoping to learn enough of the reality of law school that I can run full speed without wasting time.

[birddog]

Depending on your prof and what areas of the law they stress some books will be better than others.  In terms of learning overall law this is what I'd recommend (should be able to find all used):
E&E for Civ Pro (Glannon)
Chirelstein (however you spell it - boat on the cover) on Contracts
Chemerinsky for Con Law

I also liked the outlines and briefs in High Court Case Summaries (I tended to like outlines that were keyed to my casebooks because then I knew it would tend to cover what the prof covered).

I have to agree that law school really isn't about learning the black letter law.  95% of your class will have that memorized going into the exam.  Generally profs ask you to apply it to a new situation.  So if you learned the mailbox rule for contracts (assumed in the mailbox that it was sent/received) your prof might ask you to apply that to e-mail.  That's why generally most profs teach class by asking "what if I changed this little fact like this...)

Remember law school is learning advocacy - generally there's no right answer or there would be no need to hire a lawyer to argue your side of the case.