How do I brief a case?
A very important skill that a first-year law student learns is the art of “briefing” an assigned case. A case brief is essentially a roadmap of a legal opinion, and it provides a few critical benefits. So, it is a good exercise to brief cases when you first start reading them. (Note: We recommend a better strategy for briefing cases.)
What are the benefits of briefing cases at first?
First, a case brief serves as a way to refresh your memory on key information from a case that you may have read several days before class (and months before an exam). This certainly comes in handy if you’re called on in class, but it also helps you follow along with the class discussion and can be an effective study tool come exam time. Second, and equally important, the practice of briefing cases is an active study technique that helps you learn how to read a legal opinion. Specifically, you learn—among other things—how to spot the legal issue, recognize legally significant facts, identify the rule of law, and understand the court’s reasoning.
Briefing a case is the first step to learning how to think like a lawyer so that you’ll eventually be able to dissect a legal opinion and identify the relevant portions simply by reading it. Here, we’ll discuss the anatomy of a case brief and explain the basics of how to create one.
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