Outlining - when and how to do it?

[Blunderbuss]

Socratic method is good, I don't like professors that just tell you what the law is, because if they do, they are usually wrong.  Most first year courses are dealing with state laws and even with a federal subject like civ pro there are local variations.  Your law class should not be a survey of what these variations are, but rather should train you to be an effective advocate or an adroit problem solver,

[Sparkz1920]

Hey everyone ... so, of course, I hear multiple conflicting things about outlining.

I have been told by some 2L's, 3L's and graduates to start outlining ASAP (like in the next week or two), but then from others that I should wait (like my school is advising us) to wait until October (we're even having a meeting with our section leaders to "teach us how to do it"), because then if you wait it's more like review for the exams.

So, I'm just wondering what the pros and cons are of both options and what other people's experiences have been.

Also, I'm not quite sure I know HOW to outline ... I mean, in some classes, it just seems like we're reading cases and then talking about them and I can *kind of see* generall ideas (better in some classes than others) and I guess that's what we're going for.  I have some outlines from 3L's, but I don't just want to copy or even mimic them (just use them as references).  I guess I see general concepts for, say, Torts (liability for negligence has been our major concept thus far) and personal jurisdiction in Civ Pro, for instance.

Speaking of ... I just want to give a shout out for Glannon's Civ Pro E&E which has made all that jumbled and confusing personal jurisdiction stuff seem SO much easier!

Thanks for any opinions in advance!

Glad to see somoene in the same realm as i am in Torts and Civ Pro. We've been discussing Jurisdiction, Venue, and the like so far also. Lots of cases to brief, although i haven't been briefing the ones in my Civ Pro book because they're not like real cases. Moreso , theres this one case that goes on and on throughout the chapter and hits the points you discuss such as Jurisdicion and Venue. The other cases are rather small, and i dont think the focus is so much on the cases. I think its moreso on the rules and the other things in the text in regards to Civ Pro.

Contracts and Crim Law is a whole bunch of caselaw. Briefing cases and learning how the rules are applied by doing do.

I began my outline now, but i can see where your school is coming from by saying do it later. Im just scared ill be too swamped to even do it, so i started now. I just took my professors outlines and tailored my outline to theirs. I put notes from class, notes of my own, and a brief summary of the cases from my briefs. I figure that cant hurt.

[jarhead]

i'm a 1L and i've started briefing after the first week. my crim and property profs' syllabi break down each area of law ie. Acquistion by Discovery/ acquisition by capture etc. with the cases we read and discuss underneath, so whenever we get to the end of a section (for me after the first week) i outline. Just one section took me a really long time not so much the material as the format. figuring out where everything should go and what to leave out. civ pro i'm just briefing cases so far.