Customer Reviews

Emanuel Law Outlines: Wills, Trusts, and Estates: Keyed to Dukeminier/Johanson/Lindgren/Sitkoff

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I usually don't use hornbooks, but I was stumped with all the Wills and Trusts material. I initially got the Examples & Explanations book, which was a HORRIBLE MISTAKE. It lacks even the most basic concepts. I then went for Emanuel's, which was keyed to our textbook, and it was a dream come true, especially the mini briefs.

Oddly enough, I feel that this outline was almost too comprehensive to be useful for studying for my T&E law school final exam. The detailed outline is close to 300 pages long, and attempts to address every possible iteration of the law of Trusts and Estates, including common/federal and state specific law, the Uniform Trust Code, the Wills Act and other areas. In my opinion, this shotgun approach made weeding out the law applicable in my area from the other chaff extremely difficult. If the outline were organized in a different fashion, i.e., where how the issues in this subject were collectively addressed by the form of law (e.g., all federal law issues grouped together, all common law issues grouped together, discussion of UTC grouped together etc.) this book would have been eminently more useful to me. The sad thing is, the content of this outline is extremely good and detailed. Its organization, however, makes learning that content more of a chore than it has to be.

This outline tracks the Dukeminier casebook perfectly. If you are using that casebook, do yourself a favor and purchase this outline. It summarizes the material to just the right degree. It's doesn't skip so much that you lose the important gist of the text, but it does skip the superfluous and repetitive portions of the casebook. Best of all, the case summaries mirror class discussions, which is often a rarity with commercial outlines.

The outline simply follows the Dukeminier casebook. This book does a great job at getting the black letter law out of the casebook. It also does a good job at identifying common legal issues that arise out of the black letter law. If you use the Dukeminier casebook this book is extremely helpful. Also it has a lot exam type questions and answers that are extremely helpful when preparing for an exam.

One of the better Emanuel outlines. Explains Wills, Trusts and Estates in great detail on the black letter side. Also does an exceptional job, in my opinion, of working the reader through such challenging and esoteric topics as Federal Estate Tax, Rule Against Perpetuities and Property Interests.

As in all Emanuel outlines, there are self tests at the end of each unit, and exam tips throughout. A good resource for reviewing black letter law prior to exams.

I picked up this review for T&E because as a 3L, I don't like reading my casebook at all. Needless to say, I fell behind in what is a very complicated course, not hard, but a lot of material. This outline only helps, however, if your professor sticks to the book, which mine did thankfully. Extremely well organized and easy to digest. I've seen other emanuel outlines and haven't liked them as much as Apen's Ex. and Expl. series. But this one was very good. If you have to take T&E, I recommend reading this one.

I bought this book after realizing there was no way I'd have time to outline for all my courses last semester. The beginning gives a good short overview. For more specific details and explanations you can look at the rest of the text. It was especially helpful because it was keyed to the casebook used in my course.

Heard about the book from students that took the course already & needed it for exams, local discount bookstore sold new for $45, I ordered it on Monday, had it on my doorstep Thursday morning. I will keep this book for Bar study, used it to do Trust Critique and now will use to prepare for the final

Book was in great condition, as described

As a second-semester 3L did I do enough to prepare for this exam during the semester? No. Did I read this and still get a B? Yes. It's easy enough to understand and teaches you what you need to know, just like all the emanuel outlines. Buy it, don't get a C.

Coverage-wise, the book does a good job.

However, the book reads as if English is not the author's first language. Very difficult to divine the meaning when you first must translate poorly written sentences into something understandable, then proceed.

As other reviews have pointed out, the organization makes reading this book a chore. Most topics are handled in the following fashion:

"Common law does X; The modern approach is the exact opposite; States Y and Z do their own crazy thing."

Although that is the nature of the subject, it becomes difficult to retain when categories are not precisely drawn (i.e. separate sections for separate approaches.) The information is certainly in there, but page after page of flip-flopping around between approaches leaves you wondering what was what.