Best California Bar Exam Outlines 

If you are using outlines that are poorly written, inaccurate, or do not contain the highly tested areas on the California Bar Exam, you are already starting your bar exam preparation on the wrong foot. Having bad outlines can poison the rest of your bar prep. You can study your outlines all day, but if they are incomplete or inaccurate, you will not be doing yourself any favors. You want the best California Bar Exam outlines available! Buy our outlines here!

Best California Bar Exam Outlines  

Looking for the best California Bar Exam outlines?

You need outlines that are:

• Detailed but not unmanageably long
• Tailored to what is tested on the California Bar Exam (including essays, the performance test, and the Multistate Bar Exam)
• Organized and easy to learn. (If your outline is unorganized, it will be difficult to learn all of the material. If it is not easy to learn for you—say you are a visual learner and it is not colorful and it contains no charts or diagrams—then you are also going to be behind!)

So, what do you do if you want the best California Bar Exam outlines? JD Advising gives outlines to students in conjunction with our services and we sell them individually! However, alternative approaches to making sure your California outlines are up to snuff are as follows:

1. Create your own.

 This takes a LOT of time so you cannot do it for every subject if you are on a normal bar prep timeline. However, if you really struggle with a subject, you will “own” it by creating your own outline for it. We recommend that if you are a visual learner, you use different colors or fonts. You can “base” it off of a commercial outline, but if you do not understand something look it up (Google it! Use Wikipedia!) or get a friend, professor, or tutor to explain it to you. It can also be helpful to include charts, mnemonics you think of, etc. There is no better way to feel great about a subject than taking the time and energy to create your own outline for it!

2. Use a commercial course’s outline but add to it.

If you come across an MBE question or an essay question that tests a law you have never heard of, add it to your commercial course outline (in the section it logically belongs). Some commercial course outlines are not “bad” but they are really not complete! So, you will see something on an essay that is not in the outline. Or you will see an MBE question that tests a law not directly in the outline. Instead of getting angry, write down the law in a logical part of the outline. This way you will be constantly improving your outlines and studying the material you actually need to know for the exam!

3. Make sure that the highly tested issues from the California essays are included in your outline.

If you are wondering what the highly tested issues on the essay portion of the California Bar Exam are, you can find this in a few ways:

• You can practice a lot of California essays and create your own cheat sheets. This is a great way to actively review the material (although it is time-consuming).
• Buy our California One-Sheets here. Our California One-Sheets contain a detailed overview of the highly tested areas of law on the California essays. Each one-sheet also tells you the keywords you should be aware of for that portion of the California Bar Exam!

We have not been super impressed with the California outlines that we have seen from other commercial courses. It does not mean you won’t pass if you use a commercial course outline, but we believe our California outlines are the best! If you are interested as to why, continue reading.

Buy our outlines here!

Why We Have the Best California Outlines!

1. We tailor our outlines to the California Bar Exam.

Our outlines are detailed—but not so detailed that they are unmanageable. We update them every single administration to make sure that they adequately reflect what is on the MBE.

2. We obsess over our California MBE outlines and revise them each and every administration until they are perfect!s

Our MBE outlines focus on the highly tested areas of law. So, we start off our Evidence outline with a concise overview of hearsay, the exceptions, and exclusions. We start Torts with negligence. These are such important areas of law that they come first and foremost in our outlines. We also tell you about how many questions to expect on each topic so you know how to allocate your time for the MBE.

3. Our California MBE outlines, on average, are between 50 and 130 pages each.

They have problems (with all of the answers in the back) so that you can think critically about the law and test yourself. You also do not need to wait to watch a lecture to see if you have the right answer, as we have an answer key in the back.

4. We tell you when each topic was tested on the essay portion of the California Bar Exam! 

All issues are not tested equally! A lot of issues are repeatedly tested. And, when it comes to studying, it makes sense to prioritize your time by first focusing on the most highly tested issues so that you can get the most points! In our outlines, we tell you the exact administration each issue was tested.

Additionally, at the end of each outline, we provide you with a color-coded overview of what issues were tested for each subject during the last 20 years. This will help you see how often issues were tested. It also helps you see which issues are likely to be tested together. Lastly, it helps you see whether certain issues are likely to be tested again. You will also be able to see whether the subject itself is frequently tested or not (e.g., is Corporations on every exam?). Such information is invaluable when you develop or refine your study schedule and study efficiently.

To see an example of our outlines, see our outline sample here!

5. Our California outlines contain virtually every issue that has been tested on the California Bar Exam since 2002.

We create our California outlines by examining exams from 2002 to the most recent exam available and making sure that every tested issue is in our outlines. Our outlines are thus extremely comprehensive and detailed. We try to keep our outlines comprehensive, yet manageable. As mentioned above, our California MBE outlines are between 50 and 130 pages each, as each covers what is tested on both the MBE and the California Essay portion of the bar exam.

6. We include examples from past exams.

All of our California-specific outlines include examples from past exams so you can see exactly how different issues have been tested. This is useful because the bar examiners often use similar fact patterns to test issues. The more familiar you become with how issues have been tested in the past, the easier it will be to spot issues on the upcoming exam. You can also see this in the sample above.

7. We include examples of the highly tested areas of law on the MBE.

We tell you the topics and types of questions that continuously come up on the Multistate Bar Exam. Furthermore, we give examples and problems for you to answer. The answers to the problems are in the back of the outline.

8. We include charts to help you understand complex areas of law.

Are you avoiding learning Civil Procedure because you hate motions or joinder? Are you having trouble seeing the bigger picture and understanding the complicated timeline of when motions have to be filed or can be brought? We break down such concepts (and others) in our charts. This will help you understand the bigger picture, which makes it easier to see how specific issues should be analyzed.

9. We tell you when it is important to address different rules of law in a California essay answer.

Remember that California does test some state-specific distinctions on the bar exam.   For some issues, it is enough to know the common law rule. However, for other issues, you need multiple approaches, including California-specific approaches, to maximize the number of points you receive.

We have reviewed the bar examiners’ analyses to see when they discuss multiple approaches to an issue. Knowing this information will help you accumulate more points on exam day!

10. Our California Bar Exam outlines are well-organized and visually pleasing.

We color-code our outlines. Further, we organize them logically by topic. We also explain concepts in our outlines in an easy-to-understand fashion. Our outlines are especially good for visual learners.

Some students complain that standard commercial course outlines are too long, illogically organized, and do not have all of the issues that appear on the exam. We have perfected our outlines to minimize all of these concerns. Our outlines are concise, to the point, logically organized, aesthetically pleasing. Further, they contain virtually every issue tested since 1995 to the most recent exam available. So, you do not have to worry that you are missing out on anything!

11. We update our outlines after every administration.

When you study, it is important to use up-to-date outlines. If you learn a law that is out-of-date your analysis on an essay or MBE question will be incorrect and you will get fewer points. For example, the NCBE (with not even so much as a few months’ notice!) decided to change the scope of how they tested Evidence on the multiple-choice section of the bar exam!

We update our California outlines after every administration to reflect changes in the law. We constantly update and improve our California outlines. You can preview our outlines here!

Buy our outlines here!

We’re including images of our outlines below:

Buy our outlines here!

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