Torero Knowledge Ouline Bank
This page contains outlines for courses taken at the University of San Diego
School of Law.
If you have any outlines you would like to submit, please email them to
triton@tritonknowledge.com.
Some Brief Notes on Outlines
Having a good outline for a course can help you out a lot,
but having a good outline does not guarantee strong performance on law school
exams. Almost everybody has copies of the really good outlines.
Typically you can join one of the various clubs/organizations at the law school
and membership in the club/organization will get you access to one or more
outline banks (just go to the club/organization's website usually located on
Twen or some other similar service). Having access to a club or
organization's outline bank is a good reason to sign up for these organizations
during your first year.
Additionally, outlines get passed out and traded around all the
time by everybody. So even though most campus club/organizations have
disclaimers about not sharing outlines, if the outline is good, everybody will
have it during the final exam. When I attended USD, rumor had it that Law
Review/Moot Court/Mock Trial/Women's Law Caucus had its own "super outline bank"
that provided unrivaled top-notch outlines. This was not the case, as many
other people not on or in Law Review/Moot Court/Mock Trial/Women's Law Caucus
had the exact same outlines. It's just too easy to distribute electronic
copies of outlines. What occurs most of the time during an open book final
exam is that many people will work off of the same outline. So any edge
you thought you had because you had gotten your hands on a great outline not
available to other students probably doesn't exist.
Furthermore, almost any available University of San Diego
School of Law outline can be found here:
www.outlinedepot.com.
Other Considerations/Alternatives to Outlining
In many circumstances, having an outline or preparing an
outline from your notes is not be the best strategy for doing well in a law
school class. I don't know who came up with outlining, or why it continues
to captivate law school students, but in any case: outlines tend to
work much better in some classes than other classes.
Where Outlines Work Well
- You have an open book final exam
- Needless to say, great outlines don't do much good if you can't use
them during your test.
- Your professor has been teaching the same course at the law school for
many years
- Some professors cover virtually the same subject matter year after
year. If you can find a good outline, you can pull up the outline
during lectures in class, follow along with the lectures, and update the
outline as needed.
- First year courses usually fall into this category. Torts,
Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Property, Civil Procedure, and
Contracts focus heavily on a number of older cases and legal principles
that haven't changed much over the last century.
- You haven't studied or taken notes for a particular class
- This happens, especially in your 2L or 3L year when you may spend 20
hours a week working part-time at a law firm. Additionally, after
your first year of law school the curve becomes more lenient and many
students start to focus more on employment rather than classroom
performance.
- A good outline that you didn't prepare is much better than a
commercial outline or nothing at all. While obtaining a good
outline prepared by another person probably won't get you an A or A+ in
a class, it will more often than not get you a B or B+.
- You have an open book multiple-choice exam
- Law school multiple choice questions usually focus on 1-2 discrete
points of law, so outlines are useful for answering these questions
because you can quickly locate the relevant rule for the multiple choice
fact pattern.
- You have a mini-essay exam
- Mini-essay exams comprise several questions that require you to
write short 1-2 paragraph responses. Outlines help in mini-essay
exams because most mini-essays don't require you to have in-depth
knowledge of any particular aspect of the course. You can quickly
jot down the applicable law from your outline, and then answer the
question in a few sentences.
Where Outlines Do NOT Work As Well
- You have a closed book final exam
- In this instance an outline will only help you study for the exam.
Typically people don't retain a ton of information by just reading
somebody else's outline, but it's better than nothing.
- You have an essay based exam that focuses on academic mumbo jumbo
- Many newer law professors have PhDs and consider themselves
scholars. These types of professors typically weave in a lot of
economic theory and policy arguments into their final exams.
Accordingly, concise statements of black letter law won't be terribly
useful. In classes like these, it is much better to prepare sample
answers and use those on the final (more on this below).
- Some professors will give you 1-2 essays in a 3 hour exam period.
In cases like this, your fact pattern may be short because the professor
is expecting you to discuss the pros and cons and nuances of the law at
length. Outlines generally don't provide this type of nuance, and
in this instance, it's much better to have sample essay answers
prepared.
- You have a new professor or you have an outline for a different
professor who has taught the same course
- This almost never turns out well. If you have a different
professor, even if he or she is teaching the same subject, just assume
that you're taking a different course. Torts with professor X does
not translate well into Torts with Professor Y. Professors focus
on different parts of the law during lecture, assign different cases for
reading, and most importantly--can do pretty much whatever they want in
the classroom under the guise of teaching a subject. So if
Professor X is a huge fan of baseball, you're going to get torts cases
that occurred at a baseball game and final questions that involve the
same types of scenarios. If Professor Y happens to be
writing an article on product liability, you're going to get multiple
lectures on product liability and probably a question on product
liability.
Alternatives to Outlines
- Please see this page for
alternatives to outlines and for guidance in preparing an outline for a
class.
Available Outlines
Disclaimer: the below outlines may contain errors or typos. Although I
tried to do a good job taking notes during law school, it is impossible to write
down everything or to even write down almost everything without making a few
mistakes. Therefore, some outlines may be incomplete and/or have legal errors or
typos. People have also sent in old outlines from their USD law classes
and these outlines are also available below.