| Topic Name: |
Hastings |
| Message Name: |
Case outlines/mh |
| Date Posted: |
06/12/2000 |
| In Reply To: |
"excellent posting..."
Thanks for the kind words.
I seem to recall a case outline being that
summary you made of all the cases you already summarized (i.e., outlined). The key challenge in law school is not
memorization, but insightful distillation.
There's a law school saying I like:
if you're not confused by October 1 of
your first year, you should be worried;
if the confusion is not lifted a little by November 1 of your first year, you should also be a bit worried.
I found in my first year that if I ran
50-100 pages ahead of the class in my case reading and outline making, I got a great deal more from each class. With this hindsight, I could have been studying for finals by October 1 if I had been working a little harder the summer before school
.
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| Message: |
For a good overview of outlining (or "briefing") cases, take a look at The Bramble Bush by Karl Llewellyn. A classic. The language is a bit dated, but then so is the language in many cases that you'll be reading in law school.
"MH" refers to "Martindale Hubbell," an encyclopedic reference work that lists most law firms by location, gives a brief outline of their practice areas, etc., and lists each attorney practicing with that firm (or, at least, each attorney that the firm chooses to have listed -- some firms only list partners). They are also on line at www.marhub.com.
The best kept secret of the modern world is that there is a quick & dirty state law digest included in the MH books (one of the very last volumes), that will tell you whether the particular state has adopted this or that uniform act, with what changes, etc., along with a brief outline of the rest of that state's laws. You wouldn't believe how helpful this is as a starting place when researching law in a library that doesn't include out of state digests.
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