65+ Law School Outlines: Full, Cram & Bar Formats

Law students spend hundreds of hours building outlines from scratch. You start with a blank document, a casebook, and months of class notes. Then you try to distill it all into something usable before finals.

Most of that time is spent on structure, not substance. Figuring out how to organize the material. Deciding what to include and what to cut. Formatting headers, sub-rules, and exceptions into something you can actually scan under pressure.

What if you could skip the blank-page phase entirely?

JD Simplified's outline library gives you a professionally written foundation for every major law school and bar exam subject. You start with the structure already in place — then customize it to match your professor, your exam format, and the way you think.

22 Subjects. 65+ Outlines. More Coverage Than You'll Find Anywhere Else.

The library covers the full spectrum of legal education, from your first day of 1L to bar prep:

Core 1L Subjects

Contracts — Formation, performance, breach, remedies, UCC Article 2
Torts — Intentional torts, negligence, strict liability, defenses
Civil Procedure — Jurisdiction, pleading, discovery, summary judgment, appeals
Constitutional Law — Judicial review, federalism, individual rights, equal protection
Criminal Law — Actus reus, mens rea, inchoate crimes, defenses
Property — Estates in land, future interests, landlord-tenant, takings

Upper-Division and Tested Bar Subjects

Evidence — Relevance, hearsay, character evidence, privileges
Criminal Procedure — Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment protections
Professional Responsibility — ABA Model Rules, conflicts, confidentiality
Family Law — Marriage, divorce, custody, property division
Wills, Trusts & Estates — Intestacy, will execution, trust creation and modification
Business Associations — Partnerships, LLCs, corporations, fiduciary duties
Conflict of Laws — Choice of law, jurisdiction, full faith and credit

Specialized Subjects

Administrative Law — Agency authority, rulemaking, judicial review
Secured Transactions — UCC Article 9 attachment, perfection, priority
Securities Regulation — Registration, exemptions, antifraud provisions
Federal Income Tax — Gross income, deductions, characterization, timing
International Law — Sources, state responsibility, treaties, jurisdiction
Intellectual Property — Patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets
Remedies — Damages, equitable relief, restitution
Sales (UCC Article 2) — Formation, warranties, performance, remedies

Each subject isn't just one outline. Most subjects have three distinct versions, each designed for a different stage of your legal education.

Three Formats, Three Different Jobs

Not every outline serves the same purpose. A comprehensive deep-dive is invaluable during the semester — but useless if finals start tomorrow. That's why every subject in the library comes in up to three formats.

Full Outlines

These are your semester-long study companions. They cover the complete doctrinal landscape for each subject: rules, elements, exceptions, majority vs. minority positions, and key cases.

Think of the Full outline as the reference you wish your casebook had. When your professor raises a hypo about anticipatory repudiation and you need to understand the full rule with its exceptions, this is where you go.

Best for: Weekly review, class preparation, and building deep understanding over the course of a semester.

Cram Outlines

You told yourself you'd start studying three weeks ago. It's been 72 hours. The exam is Thursday. This is the outline for you.

No case facts. No policy debates. No "Professor Smith argues that..." Just the black-letter rules you need to know, the elements you need to spot, and the distinctions that actually show up on exams. Everything is designed for rapid scanning when your brain is already fried.

Best for: The last 48 hours before an exam, when you need the highest-yield material fast. Also great for quick refreshers between subjects, or when you realize there's a three-hour gap in your outline and you need to fill it immediately.

Bar Outlines

Bar prep is a different challenge than law school exams. The subjects overlap, but the emphasis shifts. MBE questions test specific rule applications. MEE essays test structured analysis across topics.

The Bar outlines are organized for bar prep, not classroom structure. They emphasize the rules and distinctions that the bar examiners actually test, with attention to the crossover topics that appear on both the MBE and MEE.

Best for: Supplementing your bar prep course, targeted review of weak subjects, and building a personal reference for the final weeks before the exam.

Your Starting Point, Not a Straitjacket

Browse any outline in the library from the Outlines section. When you find one you want, click Copy to Notes — this copies all three versions (Full, Cram, and Bar) to your personal Notes in one click.

Once an outline is in your Notes, it's completely yours. Edit the text, highlight key rules, change font colors to organize by topic, restructure sections to match your professor's syllabus, or delete what's irrelevant. The Notes editor supports rich formatting — highlighting, colored text, and all the tools you need to make the outline truly yours.

You can also study directly from the Outlines section without copying. But the real power is in customization: start with professional structure, then tailor it to your course, your professor, and the way you think.

Outline IQ: See What You're Missing

Already have your own outlines? Good. Outline IQ lets you upload them and see exactly where you stand.

It compares your outline against the comprehensive topic coverage for that subject and flags the gaps: topics you haven't addressed, sub-rules you might have missed, distinctions your professor is likely to test.

This isn't about replacing your work. It's about making sure your work is complete before you walk into the exam.

How to Use the Library at Every Stage

The outlines are designed to work together across your legal education. Here's the practical approach:

Start of the Semester

Open the Outlines section and find each of your courses. Click Copy to Notes — this brings over the Full, Cram, and Bar versions in one shot. Then open the Full outline in Notes and start making it yours. As you attend lectures and read cases, annotate with your professor's specific takes. Highlight key rules in different colors, add hypos, emphasize what they care about, and delete what they told you to skip. By the end of the semester, you'll have a custom study resource built on a solid foundation — with your own color-coded system for quick scanning.

Pre-Finals

Switch to the Cram outline in your Notes for focused review. Since you copied all three versions earlier, it's already there. Use it as a checklist: can you explain each rule listed? If something doesn't click, flip to your customized Full outline or your class notes for that topic. The Cram version tells you what you need to know — and quickly reveals what you don't. Pair it with our guide to crushing closed-book finals for maximum impact.

Bar Prep

Use the Bar outlines alongside your prep course. They're a concise second reference when your commercial materials feel overwhelming. They're also useful for subjects where you want a quick refresher before diving into practice questions — especially if it's been a year or two since you took the course.

How JD Simplified Outlines Compare to Themis, BarBri & JD Advising Outlines

If you've shopped around for study materials, you've probably run across outlines from the big commercial bar prep companies. It helps to understand what each format is built for, so you can decide what fits your stage of study. Here's an honest, factual comparison of how JD Simplified outlines compare to Themis outlines, BarBri outlines, and JD Advising outlines.

Themis outlines are distributed as part of the Themis bar review course. They are written for bar preparation and are organized to track that course's lecture schedule, so they work best once you're enrolled and following the Themis study calendar. BarBri outlines follow a similar model — they are tied to the BarBri bar review program and structured around its lecture sequence and assignments. JD Advising outlines are sold as standalone bar-prep condensed outlines, popular for last-stretch MEE and MBE review, and are focused squarely on the bar-tested rules.

JD Simplified takes a different approach in two ways. First, the library spans the full arc of legal education — the same subject is available as a Full outline for semester-long 1L and upper-division coursework, a Cram outline for finals, and a Bar outline for bar prep — so you are not buying a separate product for law school and a separate product for the bar. Second, every outline is meant to be copied into your Notes and customized to your own professor and exam, rather than used as a fixed course companion. The point isn't that one approach is right for everyone; it's that if you want a single resource that follows you from your first day of 1L through the bar exam, and that you can edit and make your own, JD Simplified is built for that.

Feature	JD Simplified outlines	Themis / BarBri outlines	JD Advising outlines
Primary stage	1L through bar (Full / Cram / Bar formats)	Bar prep (tied to the review course)	Bar prep (standalone condensed)
Format options per subject	Up to three (Full, Cram, Bar)	Course outline format	Condensed bar outline
Customizable in-app	Yes — Copy to Notes, then edit, highlight, restructure	Typically used as provided	Typically used as provided
Bundled with a full course	Part of the JD Simplified platform	Yes — part of the bar review course	Standalone product

Frequently Asked Questions

Are JD Simplified outlines an alternative to Themis outlines?

They can be. Themis outlines are written specifically for the Themis bar review course and track its lecture schedule, so they're at their best once you're enrolled in that program. JD Simplified outlines cover the same bar-tested subjects but in three formats — Full, Cram, and Bar — and span law school as well as bar prep, so many students use them as a standalone study resource or as a second reference alongside whatever bar course they're taking.

How do JD Simplified outlines compare to BarBri outlines?

BarBri outlines are structured around the BarBri bar review program and its lecture sequence. JD Simplified outlines aren't tied to a single lecture schedule — each subject comes in a Full version for coursework, a Cram version for finals, and a Bar version for bar prep, and you can copy any of them into your Notes and customize them. If you want material that follows you from 1L through the bar rather than only during a bar review course, that's the difference.

Is there a JD Advising outline alternative for bar prep?

JD Advising outlines are standalone condensed bar outlines focused on the bar-tested rules. JD Simplified's Bar outlines serve a similar last-mile review purpose — concise, rule-focused, organized for the MBE and MEE — with the added option of stepping up to the Full outline for any subject where you need deeper coverage before condensing back down.

Do JD Simplified outlines cover every bar subject?

The library covers 22 subjects across more than 65 outlines, including all of the heavily tested MBE and MEE subjects — Contracts, Torts, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, Business Associations, Wills, Trusts & Estates, and more. Each is available in Full, Cram, and Bar formats.

Browse the Library

Every outline is available inside JD Simplified. You can browse the full catalog, preview subjects, and copy any outline to your Notes with a single click.

Explore the Outline Library

New to JD Simplified? Create a free account to get started.