Law School is starting, has started, or will start for all those newbie 1Ls who are arriving on the scene. On behalf of all of your seniors, I offer you welcome. To HELL. Okay, so I promise it won’t be like that forever, but the first few weeks are probably going to seem like you have entered the ninth level of Dante’s Horrors.  Or perhaps they’ll start you off really light and leave you unsuspecting only to be thoroughly traumatized by greater difficulties later in the semester.  So as a gift to you, I offer you a few tools that will help you on your way.  They won’t take all the agony out of the process, but hopefully it will lighten your load at least a bit.  I have at least 7 ready to post but I’m splitting them up for readability. The rest will come out staggered over the next few days. Good luck!

 Pre-Made Case Outlines

Some people choose to outline cases on their own (and professors usually encourage you to do so), but this takes up a lot of time and effort. Since most professors test ideas not cases anyway (you may not have to name a single case on the final), the only time I ever used case outlines was during class when I was called on. It was more important to understand the rule/law than the case itself. So it might be easier to take someone else’s case outline and just modify it (add notes) to fit your needs.  While they don’t cover every class, they will cover most of the basics (all 1L classes and most Bar Exam-topic classes)

There are a lot of different case outlines available both in print and online. They will usually cover a fact summary, the rule of law, issues, ruling, and perhaps something about the reasoning.  You’ll find that many print versions are keyed to specific textbooks (meaning the cases are in the same order as is in the text) so pick one that has the most cases aligning with what you’re covering. While I often used the online versions for out-of-class research, I usually found that I needed a print copy. That let me jot down notes, highlight what I needed, and have them available to take into a test if it was open-book (usually were). They are also structure according to topic/theme so I could easily search through. But it’s really up to you.

NOTE: Underlines means it is a Link

• Casenotes (Print)

• Legalines (Print)

• High Court Case Summaries (Print)

• Online:

  • 4LawSchool
    

  • Invisipress

  • Lawnix

  • Wikipedia

  • CaseBriefs

  • Law School Case Briefs

  • LexisNexis
    

    • Don’t forget the short case summary at the head of the cases on LexisNexis.

    

Tags: 1L, 2L, 3L, advice, brief, casenotes, help, jd, keyed, Law, Law School, legal, online, outline., print, school, tips, to know, tricks