**Mastering Law School with Emanuel Law Outlines**

**What are Emanuel Law Outlines?**

Emanuel Law Outlines are a series of study aids bonded into one complete book in each subject, generally written by good law teachers who know the law and writing about it. They contain the essence of the law and how it should be applied. They also have other things like examples of exam questions and explanations of what is the best way to answer the exam questions. The student could ask himself/herself, "What would I have written if I’d had a week or two?" Most of us are not happy about our first drafts. We do not want to give the law school collection agency a longer list of book charges .
In law school, from time-to-time, students may ask themselves, "What did my professor mean by [a]?" You will hear comments like, "I didn’t do very well on that exam," and the person will continue, "I was out of town for my mom’s operation," or "I got busted at a beach party," or "I didn’t study all the material in the casebook," and often times "I spent too much time on my first answer." Students have said that they didn’t do very well on the exam because they didn’t expect to be tested on an area we had not covered in class. It’s true that most professors do not cover every topic that could be covered in his or her course. And you will sometimes hear that a professor taught only the black letter law and didn’t teach how to analyze and apply the law. Emanuel Law Outlines are supposed to help you with those things.

**Key Features of Emanuel Law Outlines**

Emanuel Law Outlines set themselves apart by providing law students with a clear and concise synthesis of the law. They are one-stop research tools, featuring thorough coverage that eliminates the need to wade through numerous high-priced supplements. Moreover, students consistently refer to them for exam prep because of their clarity, organization, and ease in studying. Crisp, clear writing enables students to quickly grasp important legal concepts and study efficiently, while a consistent, reader-friendly outline format helps them find it. Each section begins with a concise bulleted summary of the law, followed by an even more succinct discussion. All outlines follow the same logical structure, developing the law according to the elements of a claim, deftly applying each element to a relevant legal fact pattern, and compensating for the lack of practice exams in many courses by identifying typical issues and hypos that are likely to appear on a final. Some features are standard across all outlines. For example, every outline reviews the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) as well as the U.S. Constitution. In addition, outlines in some subjects explore additional content such as the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), International Sale of Goods; domestic relations; negotiable instruments; model penal codes; Restatements; UCC; and revised Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code. In these cases, the outlines also integrate these secondary concepts into their topical coverage in proportion with the importance ascribed to the topic in the casebooks. More often than not, outlines present broad overviews of each topical area, but do so with a depth that helps students understand the whole without omitting crucial details. Coverage of the age, authority, consideration, parol evidence, statute of frauds, and third-party beneficiaries in contracts as well as complex issues in family law serve as exemplars of this strategy. Because we know many law students read toward the end of the semester—likely after having exhausted their casebooks—they have little time to assimilate comprehensive legal treatises. For this reason, only the most crucial concepts are abstracted in Emanuel Law Outlines. Helpful summaries of leading cases, popular fact patterns, and lists of mnemonics and other practical tips reinforce the main points of each outline.

**Emanuel Law Outlines vs. Other Study Guides**

Unfortunately, a law school exam study aid is not a one-size-fits-all sort of thing. You might think that a comprehensive commercial outline would work best, but that’s not necessarily the best option for everyone. Or you might think that relying heavily on your casebook is a good idea (which it is!), but sometimes you don’t have time to read all those cases in detail.
Here’s a rundown of some of the options. In no particular order.

• Commercial Outlines (like Emanuel Law Outlines). Commercial outlines written by companies like BarBri and Emanuel Law are a very efficient use of your study time. These guys have read all the important case law, they know the hot issues, and they formulate exam questions to reflect these issues. However, as with any general source material, they are also limited. Different professors have different styles, and a commercial outline may lead you to under-prepare for an exam question for which you need to create a more tailored answer. Additionally, many times commercial outlines are heavily outdated, or worded in a very complicated way, which can be distracting and difficult to follow. This is why it is so important to understand the basic issues of each class before freely relying on general commercial outlines. Commercial outlines are excellent reinforcement and review tools. They are not the best choices for primary sources.
• Casebooks. Many people say that the best way to prep for your exams is to create your own casebook. In other words, read Alito’s concurrence in Caracappa (or does train go woo woo? :P) and take out all the good policy arguments, the excellent analogies, the pithy insults. But as a law school student you are going to have a ton of reading. A massive reading assignment that hasn’t seen much revising in a long time (250+ pages of undifferentiated case law is very common), doesn’t lend itself to a deep reading-extraction approach so well. Sometimes you just need to read the case…or you will be unable to keep up. Similarly, since most professors rely on many different source materials (including varied casebooks) they do expect you to have a general grasp of the topics covered by the assignments. So while casebooks are awesome to read, and often contain very insightful commentary, they take time that you often do not have. In addition to just reading the assigned cases, it is suggested that you get the professor’s syllabus for all the due dates, reading assignments, and outline requirements. Professors often sprinkle style and format hints throughout the syllabus. It is worth your time!
• Flash Cards. For those of you familiar with Barretts, "flash cards" is probably not your first choice of study aids. But if you are studying for the bar, or just want to create a more complex or multi-tool study aid, flash cards can occasionally be useful. If you are reasonably committed to actually remembering the excellent examples in the Commerical Outline, you can take those examples, and create your own condensed version of the outline on the back of the card. The back of the card can include key statute numbers, the names of the cases that apply, and possible exam hypotheticals. This approach can also really help you to internalize those examples. That way, when your professor posts "describe the elements of crime under the Model Penal Code" on the law school bulletin board, instead of thinking of a list of dry definitions, you might recall various hypotheticals that demonstrate the subtle differences between elements of crimes. This is a great tool in conjunction with the commercial outline or whatever other study aids you may be using.
• The Internet. The internet is a big place, and there are a lot of great online resources for students. For example, where else would you find "Why did Professor Ravenclaw think that Joey Kreuger is a derelict ship?" The key to being a successful law school student is to master several approaches. Many people find that those bent towards creativity and innovative ideas do well under pressure, but not because of it. Many of the ideas on the internet-from pictures to memes to songs to elaborately annotated videos-can help you. And honestly, they make learning a bit more enjoyable as well.

**How to Utilize Emanuel Law Outlines**

Emanuel Law Outlines, as part of the Emanuel Law Series, are powerful tools for law school success when applied correctly. For concrete examples, let’s apply them as follows: Step 1: Before Class with Emanuel Law Outlines 1. Pay a visit to your professor’s website and find the syllabus of topics to be covered for any given day. 2. Find the corresponding topic from the Emanuel Law Outline. 3. Read it. Quickly. Resist the urge to stop and analyze every point or go off on tangents. The goal here is to get as familiar as possible with the overall concept in play so that 4. You can be as prepared as possible to ask questions in class before you’re thrust into the middle of the matter. Refine your questions based on what you’ve read from the outline. You want to clarify matters you don’t fully understand (and double-check that you do in fact understand as much as you thought). This is about furthering your comprehension of something you’re already somewhat familiar with, from the text. Next, the outline should be utilized in conjunction with the reading assignment. Read the textbook passage, then read the outline section for it. You are not, however, looking to memorize the outline. Just a general familiarity with the way things are organized will help you out. You are going to have to remember the nuts and bolts of a subject on an exam someday, so don’t skimp on the textbooks. Step 2: During Class with Emanuel Law Outlines 1. Use your outlines as a way to take notes in class. The outline isn’t going to become a big jumbled mess of notes; it’s going to be neat and clean. Very neat and clean. Just as no successful manufacturer has a stockroom full of randomly generated parts that might or might not work with each other and no successful consumer respects that manufacturer, there is no clean outline session without a clean outline. If your prof doesn’t cover something you expected to be covered based on the outline, simply add that material into the appropriate section of the outline. This is exactly why the outlines are separated into tidily labeled sections. 2. Don’t try to capture everything the professor says in class; only capture what truly matters. Even the best and fastest note-taker can’t accurately recall and commit to paper everything said in a two-hour lecture . Let’s assume your teacher specializes in a criminal fraud case. For a little over an hour of class, he discusses case law and theory around fraud generally, but the next 40 minutes are spent on discussing the nuances, idiosyncrasies and foibles of this specific case. These can all be effectively condensed into a single note, perhaps as something like this: "Criminal fraud case: [Case Name], section focusing on elements for legal definition of ‘fraud.’" No one will ever hate you for writing less notes, but they will hate you for writing more notes than necessary or worse still, for not taking notes on what really counts. Another simple trick for note-taking: legally speaking, unless a point comes across as completely unprecedented or unprecedentedly stupid, it’s almost definitely not worth you writing "(My Prof’s Name) thinks…" and your job is to reduce what he’s saying to its essence. Step 3: Before Exams with Emanuel Law Outlines 1. Read the entire outline. Yes, all of it. That’s exactly what the course of study is designed to make you do. Make no mistake, if you’ve done everything else correctly, this will be easy enough as the concepts tend to fall into place logically. 2. Memorize the basics, like key phrases, dates and names. Much like you would cram for a history test, you need a tad bit of memorizing just as you would for that history test. Then you need to turn on your higher level thinking. It’s easy to remember a date like 2008 as opposed to remembering something esoteric like "McCormack’s Laws of Agency." Only the last example will even slightly appear on the exam. 3. There is nothing wrong with skipping around in the Outlines. Go back and forth between sections as much as you need. Some students like to start reading the first section in order and progress through to the last page. Other students find their focus wanes if they have nothing to occupy their attention between snippets of reading. In that case, jumping from section to section to strut things up a bit isn’t so bad. Confusing material should be printed and highlighted using these principles. If something seems complicated, confusing or problematic, you’ll want to highlight it with multiple colors, underline and box it and star it so you’ll recognize it at a glance.

**How and Where to Purchase Emanuel Law Outlines**

There are several places where you can purchase Emanuel Law Outlines, both new and used. Online, Amazon tends to have a good selection. If you are not already an Amazon Prime member, it may be something worth considering as you will be able to take advantage of free two-day shipping (or next day shipping for a small fee) on your text books. While eBay usually has the best prices, availability can be an issue so make sure you check eBay regularly to ensure you do not miss a great deal. The University Bookstore is a reliable resource. It may seem somewhat cliché, but we cannot stress how important it is to check if your school sells these outlines. You often find a variety of outlines, including rare or out-of-print ones, at discounted prices. These covers used or pre-ordered outlines are typically priced lower than new books. The reason is that they are considered used but are usually priced for less because they are being sold slightly damaged. There are also stores, such as Half Price Books that sell used and previously owned books. Again, Amazon and eBay are good options for purchasing used Emanuel Law Outlines (and many other different study aids). If you buy used, read the description carefully before choosing, and verify that, if you need a certain edition, if that is the edition you are getting. If you decide to go the used route, you can pay retail for the outline and try to sell it back to the school. Another option is to rent the outline. For example, Chegg offers a rental policy for a low monthly fee (if you choose to rent it for longer than one semester, you may get an option to buy it). After you are finished with it or when the semester ends, send it back for a refund.

**Student Reviews and Experiences**

A review of student experiences with Emanuel Law Outlines reveals a consistent pattern of positive feedback. In particular, students appreciate the outlines for their organization and clarity, and for how they help focus studies on key points. In fact, many students found that using these outlines in conjunction with their course materials helped them to get better grades. Most reviews cite that the outlines are organized in a way that allows for concise note taking. Students can expand upon the outlines as they study, while maintaining a structured set of notes that can be easily reviewed later. In addition to being organized , students love these outlines for their thoroughness. Every major topic covered in the course is included in the outlines. Despite this overwhelmingly positive feedback, there were some areas of critique noted. Some students found the outlines to be over-brief;, at times lacking in detail or thoroughness in explaining more complex issues. Others said that some areas of the material were confusingly presented, and difficult to decipher. However, while the negative reviews do contain some substance, the positive reviews are numerous enough to drown out the few negative reviews.