California Bar Outlines: How People Outline Incorrectly

Outlining in law school is different from outlining the bar exam.  Think about how you outlined in law school. You likely sat down at the end of the semester, went lecture by lecture, and shrunk your notes into a 10 page outline that you could memorize.  While this is perfectly fine in law school, there is a better way to outline for the bar exam.  

For those of you that have your BarBri essay book sitting next to you, open to the contracts section.  Skip reading the essay questions and read the first few paragraphs of the sample answers.  What do you notice? All contracts questions start exactly the same way.  

A big mistake is to outline the lectures in BarBri like you did in law school.  While studying for bar review, its better to outline the sample essays.  Not only will you have a better idea of what the bar examiners find important enough to test repeatedly, you will know exactly how to start each essay based on topic alone!