How Can I Use AI To Make Law School Outlines?

Making law school outlines used to be very simple; you would just take your notes from the semester and refine them. You could also add your notes to an outline you got from a fellow student, and maybe incorporate some case summaries from a test prep company. Now, you have the option to use AI to help you make law school outlines.

This tool is really exciting and new, so standard usage for it hasn’t been established yet. I’m a law school graduate (University of Miami), and I’ve researched the topic to give you what I think are the best ways to use AI to make law school outlines.

I also want to put in a quick preface to this list: AI is a tool. It is not a replacement for hard work. You still need to use your noggin in law school and nothing can or should replace that.

Step 1 - Do Not Use AI To Violate Your Law School Policies When Making Outlines

This is an important step, don’t skip it. If any of the subsequent steps violate this step, then defer to this step. Don’t get kicked out of law school or dinged for cheating for using AI. There are a few schools setting policies as described in the ABA journal, but you want to make sure you’re up to date with your school’s policy.

Step 2 - When Using AI To Make Law School Outlines: Trust, But Verify

Anything that AI creates for you is something you want to verify. The fact of the matter is that AI is capable of lying, or being wrong. So make sure you verify everything it says to you about cases, citations, your notes, etc… is correct. Verification should be easier than creation, so you shouldn’t be losing time on this aspect of the process overall.

Step 3 - Use AI To Merge Existing Law School Outlines

You can feed AI source materials to use when creating something new. I would suggest getting as many high quality outlines together that you can for your specific class / exam, and getting the AI to create one outline, using all of the ones you tell it to use as a source. In effect, that will merge the separate outlines into one super outline. Once this is done, you will want to verify that your new, super outline has all the relevant facts from the old outlines. This requires work and time. AI is a tool, not a replacement for hard work (sorry to sound like a square, but it is what it is).

Step 4 - Use AI To Merge Existing Law School Outlines

If your notes from the semester are digital, import your notes into the AI to use as a source for making your outline more comprehensive. If you are studying with other students, you can all pool your notes for this purpose and merge your notes the same way you merged outlines together. This should help create a really comprehensive outline, pooling expertise from past outliners, your own expertise, and your fellow students.

Step 5 - AI Outlines Are Not A Magic Bullet, You Also Need To Study!

This is the most important step. AI isn’t going to take your test for you. So, after you’ve pooled all this information into an outline containing past outlines and notes, you’re going to want to learn the material. AI can help you study as well as create outlines.