Case briefs

"Case" can refer to an entire course of litigation between parties to a particular dispute. The term can also refer more narrowly to a particular explanation that a judge writes to explain a significant decision that they make during this dispute. These explanations are also called "opinions." Whereas most casebooks include only short excerpts of these opinions, we will generally read them in their entirety.

These opinions are the "cases" that one can "brief." In this course, you are generally not required to create thorough case briefs. Rather, for every assigned case, you should generally be able to:

1. Summarize the key facts (and only the key facts) in about three clear sentences.
2. State all the relevant claims: "[The plaintiff] has a claim of [a tort] against [the defendant] for [harming the plaintiff] by [engaging in some tortious conduct]."
3. Identify the key issues in the case, which may require an understanding of the case's procedural posture.
4. Formulate relevant holdings from the case. (More on this soon.)
5. Explain why you think the case matters to what we are studying -- in other words, why I assigned it. An assignment's "reading hints" may help you with this.
6. Ask (and if you're able, answer) some key questions about the case. Our cases will present both substantive and procedural issues that are new to you. (This is intentional: You are learning to teach yourself. This is what lawyers do to keep up with and even ahead of constantly changing law.)

A comprehensive "case brief" -- which, again, this course generally does not require -- goes far beyond this. It systematically summarizes an opinion by carefully mapping the court's explanation onto a consistent structure. The core of this structure is some variation of the "Issue-Rules-Analysis-Conclusion" framework that you will frequently use when writing legal memos and taking exams in law school, when practicing law after you graduate, and even when navigating everyday life.

In contrast with less structured notes (often called marginal notes or book briefs), case briefs can help to view a case holistically and to frame it effectively -- skills that are important both in the near term (on the exam) and in the long term (in practice).

This framework is also helpful in formulating "holdings" from each case. As you will learn, a "holding" is a unique combination of law and fact that (1) is necessary to the outcome of the present case and (2) can be applied as a rule of decision in a future case. It may also be called a "ratio decidendi." (For the 1Ls: This should be confusing now! It will become clearer later.)

One format -- but by no means the only format -- for case briefs is:

1. What are the basics?
   1. What is the case name?
   2. What is the case citation (with court, year, and judge)?
   3. Why is the case important to what we are studying? (Why did we read this case?)
   4. What kind of court is this (trial or appeal; state or federal)?
   5. What state’s law is the court applying?
2. What are the relevant facts?
   1. What are the basic facts? How would you summarize them in three sentences or fifteen seconds?
   2. What are all the facts that are material to the legal issues before the court?
   3. Are these facts established, assumed to be true, or alleged?
3. What is the relevant procedural information?
   1. Who are the parties?
   2. What are their claims? In general, you should be able to state each claim as: "[The plaintiff] has a claim of [tort] against [the defendant] for [harming the plaintiff] by [engaging in some tortious conduct]."
   3. What is the history of the litigation?
   4. What is the court now being asked to do? By whom?
4. What are the issues?
   1. What issues (including nested issues) are addressed? How do they relate to each other?
   2. What is the first issue?
      1. What does the court hold? (To reiterate: A "holding" is a unique combination of law and fact that (1) is necessary to the outcome of the present case and (2) can be applied as a rule of decision in a future case. It may also be called a "ratio decidendi.")
      2. What specific rules (including previous case holdings) and arguments does the court reference?
      3. How does the court apply these rules and arguments to the facts of the case?
      4. What does the court decide?
      5. Do any judges concur or dissent on this issue?
      6. Which parties are pleased? Which are not pleased?
   3. What is the second issue? ...
   4. What is the third issue? ...
   5. ...
   6. What is the final issue? ...
5. What is the outcome of the case?
   1. What is the court’s judgment?
   2. Which parties are pleased? Which are not pleased?
   3. What happens next in the dispute?
6. What do you think?
   1. What legal terms and concepts are key? What do they mean?
   2. What else did you learn from the opinion (such as the origins of or alternatives to a particular rule)?
   3. What questions do you have?
   4. What bothers you?
   5. Is the case consistent with the goals of law?
   6. Does the court reveal, acknowledge, or omit potentially important context (such as bias)?
7. Return to the top: Why is the case important to what we are studying?

If you do brief a case, you might compare yours to those that:

1. Other students have created
2. Third parties (such as Westlaw or Lexis) have created
3. Generative AI tools have created

There may be inconsistencies among these. Do not assume that one source is necessarily correct -- or even that agreement among all of these sources guarantees correctness. Furthermore, while some aspects of a brief do have objectively correct answers (such as the procedural history of the case), others are more open to interpretation and argumentation (especially the holdings!).