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How to Write a Case Brief: Essential Skills for Law Students

Ever been in a courtroom, or watched one on TV and wondered how attorneys keep track of all those cases? Imagine trying to recall each fact, rule, or precedent at the drop of a gavel! It’s enough to make your brain whirl!

Welcome to the world of case briefs – an attorney’s secret weapon. They’re like maps guiding lawyers through the complex labyrinth that is law. Writing them well can be daunting though, right?

We’ve got you covered! You’ll soon master writing clear and concise case briefs. We’ll dissect every component from facts to conclusions while helping you avoid common pitfalls.

The best part? This isn’t just for future Atticus Finches out there; anyone looking for enhanced understanding of legal principles will find this handy too!

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Understanding the Importance of a Case Brief

Imagine you’re a chef preparing to whip up a gourmet meal. A case brief is your recipe – it outlines the ingredients (facts), method (legal principles), and expected outcome (judgment). Without this ‘recipe’, you might miss an important step or ingredient, resulting in a less-than-stellar dish.

A case brief plays much the same role for law students and professionals alike. It’s an essential tool that helps dissect complex legal cases into manageable chunks. Think of it as your roadmap through dense legal jungles filled with precedent-setting decisions, intricate arguments, and landmark judgments. Litigators especially find them handy when they need to recall specific details from previous cases.

The Beauty of Brevity:

In law school, time is gold but so are words. You’ll be dealing with hefty textbooks and long-winded court rulings – more than enough reason why brevity becomes beautiful. A well-written case brief distills these verbose documents into their core elements: facts, procedural history, issue at hand, rule applied by the court (the holding) , rationale behind it (the reasoning) , decision reached (the judgment) , along with any concurring or dissenting opinions.

A Lifeline for Legal Eagles:

Ever heard of the phrase ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’? That’s exactly what you’re doing when you use a case brief. You’re leveraging past knowledge to build your own understanding, and perhaps even contribute something new. By analyzing how previous cases were argued and decided, budding lawyers can sharpen their critical thinking skills – an invaluable asset in this profession.

Essential Elements of a Case Brief

A well-structured case brief is like a blueprint for understanding complex legal cases. Just as architects use blueprints to visualize and construct buildings, law students and professionals use case briefs to break down intricate details of court rulings.

First off, every robust case brief begins with the case name . It’s your marker in the vast sea of legal proceedings. Identifying it correctly allows you not only to distinguish between cases but also to recall them quickly when needed.

Facts: The Foundation Stones

The facts are what make each case unique. They’re like foundation stones on which entire arguments rest. Including essential information about who did what and why can help lay this foundation strong in your mind, helping you understand how laws apply in real-world scenarios.

Procedural History: Tracing Legal Footsteps

The procedural history traces all steps taken by lower courts before reaching its current status. Think of it as tracking footprints left behind during previous stages – knowing where they lead can give valuable insight into how decisions were made along the way.

The Issue & Rule: Navigating Through Complexity

In every case lies an issue—a specific question asked within the context of these detailed facts—and corresponding rules or principles applied by courts answer this query.

Analysis & Conclusion: Drawing Lessons

The analysis discusses how courts apply rules to specific facts. The conclusion ties everything together with a clear, concise statement of who won and why.

Becoming adept at identifying these elements will help you become an expert case brief writer – because every great building starts with a well-drawn blueprint.

Steps to Writing an Effective Case Brief

To craft an effective case brief, you should begin by reading the entire court document. This lets you get a grasp on the context and details.

Dig Into The Facts

After reading, start by noting down all important facts. Identify who’s involved, what happened, and why it matters in legal terms. Make sure not to miss out on any crucial information here because this forms your foundation.

Note Down Procedural History

The next step is jotting down procedural history: where did this dispute start? Which courts heard it before reaching its current state? Remember – each stage influences how laws are interpreted.

Identify The Issue At Hand

Moving forward from there is identifying issues at hand. What specific legal question does this case pose? Get into detective mode.

This helps clarify what rule or precedent will be applied.

Catch That Rule of Law.

Your fourth task is spotting that elusive rule of law being used in the judgment process.

Analyze And Conclude:

The fifth move involves analyzing how judges apply rules identified earlier in these particular circumstances. They might interpret them differently based on various factors; see if you can pinpoint these variations.

Last but definitely not least, draw your conclusions. What is the result of this situation? How does it impact future legal scenarios?

Following these steps ensures you have a well-structured and comprehensive case brief that will be invaluable in understanding complex cases.

Tips for Writing a Clear and Concise Case Brief

Writing a clear and concise case brief is much like preparing a recipe. You need to gather all the right ingredients, follow the steps meticulously, and in the end, you have something palatable that everyone can understand.

Choose Your Words Wisely

The first step is choosing your words wisely. Avoid legal jargon when simpler language will do just as well.

Maintain Focus on Key Points

Next up – maintain focus on key points. Stick strictly with facts directly related to resolving the issue at hand in your case briefs. Avoid irrelevant details because they cloud understanding rather than enhancing it – stay focused.

Fine-Tune Your Formatting Skills

Last but not least: formatting matters too. Consider using bullet points or numbered lists where appropriate so information stands out clearly (remember our recipe analogy?).

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Case Brief

As law students, we often make mistakes while drafting our first few case briefs. But remember, errors are stepping stones to learning. Here’s a rundown of common blunders and how you can sidestep them.

Failing to Understand the Facts Fully

Sometimes, in an effort to keep things concise, important details may be overlooked or misunderstood. To prevent this from happening, understand your case thoroughly. You might find that re-reading helps uncover missed nuances.

Omitting Legal Precedents

We tend to focus on the current case at hand and forget about previous rulings that set precedents. These play a pivotal role in judicial decisions. Research past cases to strengthen your understanding and enhance your argument.

Lack of Clarity and Precision

The purpose of writing a case brief is not just for academic evaluation but also as a tool for future reference. It should therefore be clear enough for others (and future you) to get the gist quickly without needing further explanation . Make sure every sentence counts.

Relying Too Heavily on Templates or Examples

Tailor-made solutions always outshine one-size-fits-all approaches. While templates can guide you, don’t be a slave to them. Rather than conforming to an existing template, it is essential to bring out the distinctive elements and perspectives of your case.

Misplacing Focus

A common pitfall is overemphasizing less critical aspects while sidelining key issues. Always keep sight of what matters most: the legal issue at hand and how it was resolved. Writing a solid case brief isn’t just about skill – it’s an art form.

The Role of Precedent in Case Briefs

Precedents play a significant role in case briefs, acting as guiding lights for legal reasoning. But what exactly are precedents? Simply put, they are past judicial decisions used to help interpret and apply the law to new cases.

Analyzing Legal Precedence in Your Case Brief

In your case brief, analyzing the relevant precedent will involve examining prior rulings on similar issues or facts. This process lets you predict how a court might rule based on established patterns.

But remember not every old decision serves as good illumination; only those from higher courts within the same jurisdiction do so. For instance, if we consider U.S Federal Courts system hierarchy, U.S District Court rulings don’t bind Appellate Courts or the Supreme Court.

Using Precedent to Craft Strong Arguments

Beyond predicting potential outcomes, using precedent can also help build robust arguments. When a previous ruling aligns with your case, citing it can strengthen your argument. Conversely, if an unfavorable precedent exists, you might argue why it shouldn’t apply to your situation.

Understanding and effectively using precedents in case briefs isn’t just helpful; it’s essential. They give context for decisions and offer predictability in the legal process – all while lighting up that otherwise dark path of legal reasoning.

Reviewing and Revising Your Case Brief

So, you’ve written your case brief. But are you done? Not quite. Revisiting and refining your work is an essential part of the process to ensure accuracy. Ensure that your brief is a precise representation of the case by thoroughly examining it.

Meticulous Examination for Accuracy

To start with, check if all elements in your case brief template are correctly filled out. Make sure that each point, from facts to legal principles applied, lines up perfectly with what was in the actual case document.

If any discrepancies arise between your summary and the original text during this review stage, take steps to fix them right away.

Critical Evaluation for Clarity

Beyond accuracy lies clarity – does your briefing make sense not only to you but also to others who might read it?

The Power of Peer Reviews

This brings us onto peer reviews: they can be invaluable here. A fresh set of eyes often catches things we miss, after all.

Ask a fellow law student or even your professor to review your brief and provide feedback. Their perspectives can help you spot any gaps in explanation, unclear language, or legal inaccuracies.

A Continuous Process

Last but not least, remember that revising is an ongoing process – it’s rare for anything to be perfect on the first go. As you learn more about the law and develop as a lawyer, come back and revise older case briefs with fresh insights.

The Impact of a Well-Written Case Brief

A well-crafted case brief not only gives you a sense of direction and understanding, but also helps to simplify intricate legal concepts.

Imagine walking into a courtroom with an encyclopedia’s worth of knowledge condensed into easily digestible notes. It’s like having your very own toolbox, filled with precisely what you need to make compelling arguments.

A robust case brief is more than just an outline; it’s a roadmap that guides you through the labyrinthine world of law. Each section—facts, procedural history, issue, rule analysis—is not merely informative but instructive too.

Improved Legal Understanding

Diving deep into past cases lets us swim around legal precedents and understand their impact on current laws. A detailed summary allows us to examine these influences from various angles which ultimately sharpens our analytical skills and broadens our perspectives about the law itself.

In essence, preparing comprehensive case briefs isn’t simply busywork—it’s mental gymnastics for future lawyers. So don’t think twice before rolling up those sleeves because as we say at The Art of Law School: No pain (in this case reading lots.), no gain.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the primary purpose of writing a case brief in law school? The primary purpose of writing a case brief is to condense and synthesize complex legal cases into a manageable format. It helps law students and professionals understand and recall key aspects of cases, such as facts, legal issues, and judgments, which is crucial for classroom discussions, exams, and legal practice.

2. What are the key components of an effective case brief? An effective case brief typically includes the case name, relevant facts, procedural history, the legal issue(s) at hand, the rule of law applied, the court’s analysis, and the final judgment or conclusion. Each component provides a structured overview of the case, making it easier to understand and remember.

3. How can a case brief help in legal studies and practice? Case briefs help in legal studies by facilitating better comprehension and recall of complex cases, improving critical thinking and analytical skills, and preparing students for class participation and exams. In legal practice, they serve as quick references to legal precedents and assist in formulating legal strategies and arguments.

4. What are common mistakes to avoid while writing a case brief? Common mistakes include missing out on crucial facts or legal issues, overly summarizing the case to the point of losing important details, failing to clearly articulate the rule of law, and not aligning the case analysis with the conclusion. Avoiding these errors ensures the brief is both accurate and useful.

5. How does technology aid in writing case briefs? Technology, particularly legal research tools and AI-powered applications, aids in writing case briefs by providing easy access to a vast database of legal cases and precedents, enabling efficient research, and offering analytical insights that can enhance the quality of case briefs.

Mastering the art of case briefing is a pivotal step in your legal education journey, and now, equipped with the right techniques and insights, it’s within your reach. These skills are more than academic necessities; they are crucial in demystifying the complexities of legal cases, helping you transition from classroom theory to real-world application seamlessly.

As you delve into each case, remember the importance of accurately capturing the case name, facts, and the ruling. These key elements form the backbone of your legal analysis, guiding you through the nuances of each case. With the strategies and tips provided, you’re well-prepared to craft briefs that are both precise and insightful. Embrace this skill as a continuous learning process, refining and honing with each brief you compose. Stay dedicated, and watch as your ability to dissect and understand complex legal scenarios reaches new heights, setting the stage for a successful legal career.

Stephen Metellus

I am a 3L law student in Washington D.C and owner of theartoflawschool.com! I started law school with a lot of hopes and expectations, and it has certainly been a wild ride from the start! My goal is writing articles that help you in navigating through law school.

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Writing Effective Legal Case Briefs for Law Students

How to write a case brief, complete with examples.

tl;dr - Case briefs help your understanding of legal concepts and enable you to better prepare for exams. Here are some example case briefs .

As a new law student, one of the essential skills you need to develop is the ability to write effective legal case briefs. A case brief is a concise summary of a legal case that highlights the key issues, legal principles, and holdings of the court. Writing a good case brief can help you better understand the law, prepare for class discussions and exams, and become a more effective legal professional. In this article, we'll explore the key elements of a good legal case brief and provide some tips on how to write one effectively.

Legal case briefs are an essential tool for you as a law student, as they provide a concise and organized summary of a court case. Case brief examples serve as a means for you to understand the facts, issues, and legal principles underlying a court decision, and are crucial in helping you develop analytical and critical thinking skills.

One of the primary reasons why case briefs are important for you is that they help you understand the law in a practical and applied manner. In law school, you study legal principles and concepts in a theoretical sense. However, case briefs provide a means for you to see how these principles are applied in real-world situations. By analyzing and dissecting court decisions, you are able to gain a better understanding of how legal principles and concepts are applied in practice. For example, case brief examples of landmark cases like Marbury v. Madison or Brown v. Board of Education can help you understand the historical and legal significance of these cases.

Understand the Structure of a Legal Case Brief

Before we dive into the details of how to write a good legal case brief, it's important to understand its structure. A typical legal case brief, such as the examples of case briefs available on LSD , includes the following sections:

Title and Citation: This section includes the name of the case, the court that decided the case, and the citation (i.e., the reference that identifies where the case is published).
Facts: This section provides a brief summary of the key facts of the case, including who the parties are, what they did, and how the case came to court.
Issues: This section identifies the legal issues that the court was asked to decide, and focuses on the questions that the court addressed in its decision.
Holding: This section summarizes the court's decision on the legal issues presented in the case.
Analysis: This section provides an explanation of the court's reasoning in arriving at its holding, including the legal principles and rules that the court relied on.

Focus on the Key Facts and Issues

When writing a case brief, it's important to focus on the key facts and legal issues presented in the case. You should avoid including unnecessary details or information that is not relevant to the legal issues. Instead, focus on the facts and issues that are essential to understanding the court's decision. This is evident in many examples of case briefs written by legal professionals.

Identify the Legal Principles and Rules

In addition to focusing on the key facts and issues, it's important to identify the legal principles and rules that the court relied on in arriving at its decision. This will help you understand the court's reasoning and the legal principles that are relevant to the case. Many examples of case briefs available online also highlight the legal principles and rules that were applied in a particular case.

Use Clear and Concise Language

A good legal case brief should be written in clear and concise language, as seen in examples of case briefs written by legal professionals. You should avoid using legal jargon or technical terms that may be difficult for a layperson to understand. Instead, use plain language that accurately conveys the meaning of the court's decision.

Be Organized and Structured

To make your case brief more effective, it's important to be organized and structured in your writing. Use headings and subheadings to separate different sections of your brief, and make sure that each section flows logically from one to the next. This is evident in many examples of case briefs available online, which are organized and structured in a clear and logical manner.

So, what’s the point?

Developing analytical and critical thinking skills.

Writing case briefs helps you develop analytical and critical thinking skills. By analyzing court decisions and identifying key facts, issues, and legal principles, you are practicing your ability to think critically and to identify relevant legal issues. Case briefs provide a practical way to develop these skills and apply them to real-world legal problems.

To further develop your analytical and critical thinking skills, you can practice writing your own case briefs. Take a recent court decision and write a brief that summarizes the key facts, issues, and legal principles involved. This will help you become more proficient at identifying relevant information and organizing it in a structured manner.

Preparing for Class and Exams

In addition to being a valuable tool for developing analytical skills, case briefs also help you prepare for class discussions and exams. As you read cases and write briefs, you are gaining a deeper understanding of the law and the reasoning behind court decisions. This knowledge will help you participate more effectively in class discussions and will also help you prepare for law school exams.

To get the most out of case briefs when preparing for exams, you can practice writing case briefs for cases that you studied throughout the year, or to hypotheticals from past exams. This will help you apply the analytical skills you've developed to new situations and ensure that you are able to communicate your understanding of legal principles effectively.

In conclusion, case briefs are an essential tool for law students as they provide a practical application of legal principles, help develop analytical and critical thinking skills, and aid in preparing for class discussions and exams. By studying case brief examples, practicing writing your own briefs, and developing a deep understanding of the law in context, you can become a more proficient and effective student and legal professional. For examples, check out LSD's case brief database .

Tech-focused creator of LSD.Law. I built LSD while applying to law school. I saw unequal access to knowledge and built LSD to level the playing field and help applicants make thoughtful, well-informed decisions in the application process.

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Between 9:00 PM EST on Saturday, May 29th and 9:00 PM EST on Sunday, May 30th users will not be able to access resources through the Law Library’s Catalog, the Law Library’s Database List, the Law Library’s Frequently Used Databases List, or the Law Library’s Research Guides. Users can still access databases that require an individual user account (ex. Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law), or databases listed on the Main Library’s A-Z Database List.

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Every law student and practicing attorney must be able to find, read, analyze, and interpret case law. Under the common law principles of stare decisis, a court must follow the decisions in previous cases on the same legal topic. Therefore, finding cases is essential to finding out what the law is on a particular issue.

This guide will show you how to read a case citation and will set out the sources, both print and online, for finding cases. This guide also covers how to use digests, headnotes, and key numbers to find case law, as well as how to find cases through terms and connectors searching.

To find cases using secondary sources, such as legal encyclopedias or legal treatises, see our Secondary Sources Research Guide . For additional strategies to find cases, like using statutory annotations or citators, see our Case Law Research Tutorial . Our tutorial also covers how to update cases using citators (Lexis’ Shepard’s tool and Westlaw’s KeyCite).

Basic Case Citation

A case citation is a reference to where a case (also called a decision or an opinion ) is printed in a book. The citation can also be used to retrieve cases from Westlaw and Lexis . A case citation consists of a volume number, an abbreviation of the title of the book or other item, and a page number.

The precise format of a case citation depends on a number of factors, including the jurisdiction, court, and type of case. You should review the rest of this section on citing cases (and the relevant rules in The Bluebook ) before trying to format a case citation for the first time. See our Bluebook Guide for more information.

The basic format of a case citation is as follows:

Parallel Citations

When the same case is printed in different books, citations to more than one book may be given. These additional citations are known as parallel citations .

Example: 265 U.S. 274, 68 L. Ed. 1016, 44 S. Ct. 565.

This means that the case you would find at page 565 of volume 44 of the Supreme Court Reporter (published by West) will be the same case you find on page 1016 of volume 68 of Lawyers' Edition (published by Lexis), and both will be the same as the opinion you find in the official government version, United States Reports . Although the text of the opinion will be identical, the added editorial material will differ with each publisher.

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How to do legal research in 3 steps

Knowing where to start a difficult legal research project can be a challenge. But if you already understand the basics of legal research, the process can be significantly easier — not to mention quicker.

Solid research skills are crucial to crafting a winning argument. So, whether you are a law school student or a seasoned attorney with years of experience, knowing how to perform legal research is important — including where to start and the steps to follow.

What is legal research, and where do I start?

Black's Law Dictionary defines legal research as “[t]he finding and assembling of authorities that bear on a question of law." But what does that actually mean? It means that legal research is the process you use to identify and find the laws — including statutes, regulations, and court opinions — that apply to the facts of your case.

In most instances, the purpose of legal research is to find support for a specific legal issue or decision. For example, attorneys must conduct legal research if they need court opinions — that is, case law — to back up a legal argument they are making in a motion or brief filed with the court.

Alternatively, lawyers may need legal research to provide clients with accurate legal guidance . In the case of law students, they often use legal research to complete memos and briefs for class. But these are just a few situations in which legal research is necessary.

Why is legal research hard?

Each step — from defining research questions to synthesizing findings — demands critical thinking and rigorous analysis.

1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience.

2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material. The sheer volume forces the researcher to be efficient by following a methodology based on a solid foundation of legal knowledge and principles.

3. The law is a fluid doctrine. It changes with time, and staying updated with the latest legal codes, precedents, and statutes means the most resourceful lawyer needs to assess the relevance and importance of new decisions.

Legal research can pose quite a challenge, but professionals can improve it at every stage of the process .

Step 1: Key questions to ask yourself when starting legal research

Before you begin looking for laws and court opinions, you first need to define the scope of your legal research project. There are several key questions you can use to help do this.

What are the facts?

Always gather the essential facts so you know the “who, what, why, when, where, and how” of your case. Take the time to write everything down, especially since you will likely need to include a statement of facts in an eventual filing or brief anyway. Even if you don't think a fact may be relevant now, write it down because it may be relevant later. These facts will also be helpful when identifying your legal issue.

What is the actual legal issue?

You will never know what to research if you don't know what your legal issue is. Does your client need help collecting money from an insurance company following a car accident involving a negligent driver? How about a criminal case involving excluding evidence found during an alleged illegal stop?

No matter the legal research project, you must identify the relevant legal problem and the outcome or relief sought. This information will guide your research so you can stay focused and on topic.

What is the relevant jurisdiction?

Don't cast your net too wide regarding legal research; you should focus on the relevant jurisdiction. For example, does your case deal with federal or state law? If it is state law, which state? You may find a case in California state court that is precisely on point, but it won't be beneficial if your legal project involves New York law.

Where to start legal research: The library, online, or even AI?

In years past, future attorneys were trained in law school to perform research in the library. But now, you can find almost everything from the library — and more — online. While you can certainly still use the library if you want, you will probably be costing yourself valuable time if you do.

When it comes to online research, some people start with free legal research options , including search engines like Google or Bing. But to ensure your legal research is comprehensive, you will want to use an online research service designed specifically for the law, such as Westlaw . Not only do online solutions like Westlaw have all the legal sources you need, but they also include artificial intelligence research features that help make quick work of your research

Step 2: How to find relevant case law and other primary sources of law

Now that you have gathered the facts and know your legal issue, the next step is knowing what to look for. After all, you will need the law to support your legal argument, whether providing guidance to a client or writing an internal memo, brief, or some other legal document.

But what type of law do you need? The answer: primary sources of law. Some of the more important types of primary law include:

Case law, which are court opinions or decisions issued by federal or state courts
Statutes, including legislation passed by both the U.S. Congress and state lawmakers
Regulations, including those issued by either federal or state agencies
Constitutions, both federal and state

Searching for primary sources of law

So, if it's primary law you want, it makes sense to begin searching there first, right? Not so fast. While you will need primary sources of law to support your case, in many instances, it is much easier — and a more efficient use of your time — to begin your search with secondary sources such as practice guides, treatises, and legal articles.

Why? Because secondary sources provide a thorough overview of legal topics, meaning you don't have to start your research from scratch. After secondary sources, you can move on to primary sources of law.

For example, while no two legal research projects are the same, the order in which you will want to search different types of sources may look something like this:

Secondary sources . If you are researching a new legal principle or an unfamiliar area of the law, the best place to start is secondary sources, including law journals, practice guides , legal encyclopedias, and treatises. They are a good jumping-off point for legal research since they've already done the work for you. As an added bonus, they can save you additional time since they often identify and cite important statutes and seminal cases.
Case law . If you have already found some case law in secondary sources, great, you have something to work with. But if not, don't fret. You can still search for relevant case law in a variety of ways, including running a search in a case law research tool.

Once you find a helpful case, you can use it to find others. For example, in Westlaw, most cases contain headnotes that summarize each of the case's important legal issues. These headnotes are also assigned a Key Number based on the topic associated with that legal issue. So, once you find a good case, you can use the headnotes and Key Numbers within it to quickly find more relevant case law.

Statutes and regulations . In many instances, secondary sources and case law list the statutes and regulations relevant to your legal issue. But if you haven't found anything yet, you can still search for statutes and regs online like you do with cases.

Once you know which statute or reg is pertinent to your case, pull up the annotated version on Westlaw. Why the annotated version? Because the annotations will include vital information, such as a list of important cases that cite your statute or reg. Sometimes, these cases are even organized by topic — just one more way to find the case law you need to support your legal argument.

Keep in mind, though, that legal research isn't always a linear process. You may start out going from source to source as outlined above and then find yourself needing to go back to secondary sources once you have a better grasp of the legal issue. In other instances, you may even find the answer you are looking for in a source not listed above, like a sample brief filed with the court by another attorney. Ultimately, you need to go where the information takes you.

Step 3: Make sure you are using ‘good’ law

One of the most important steps with every legal research project is to verify that you are using “good" law — meaning a court hasn't invalidated it or struck it down in some way. After all, it probably won't look good to a judge if you cite a case that has been overruled or use a statute deemed unconstitutional. It doesn't necessarily mean you can never cite these sources; you just need to take a closer look before you do.

The simplest way to find out if something is still good law is to use a legal tool known as a citator, which will show you subsequent cases that have cited your source as well as any negative history, including if it has been overruled, reversed, questioned, or merely differentiated.

For instance, if a case, statute, or regulation has any negative history — and therefore may no longer be good law — KeyCite, the citator on Westlaw, will warn you. Specifically, KeyCite will show a flag or icon at the top of the document, along with a little blurb about the negative history. This alert system allows you to quickly know if there may be anything you need to worry about.

Some examples of these flags and icons include:

A red flag on a case warns you it is no longer good for at least one point of law, meaning it may have been overruled or reversed on appeal.
A yellow flag on a case warns that it has some negative history but is not expressly overruled or reversed, meaning another court may have criticized it or pointed out the holding was limited to a specific fact pattern.
A blue-striped flag on a case warns you that it has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals.
The KeyCite Overruling Risk icon on a case warns you that the case may be implicitly undermined because it relies on another case that has been overruled.

Another bonus of using a citator like KeyCite is that it also provides a list of other cases that merely cite your source — it can lead to additional sources you previously didn't know about.

Perseverance is vital when it comes to legal research

Given that legal research is a complex process, it will likely come as no surprise that this guide cannot provide everything you need to know.

There is a reason why there are entire law school courses and countless books focused solely on legal research methodology. In fact, many attorneys will spend their entire careers honing their research skills — and even then, they may not have perfected the process.

So, if you are just beginning, don't get discouraged if you find legal research difficult — almost everyone does at first. With enough time, patience, and dedication, you can master the art of legal research.

Thomson Reuters originally published this article on November 10, 2020.

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The Law School Case Method

In the majority of your law school courses, and probably in all of your first-year classes, your only texts will be casebooks—collections of written judicial decisions in actual court cases.

The case method eschews explanation and encourages exploration. In a course that relies entirely on the casebook, you will never come across a printed list of "laws."

Indeed, you will learn that in many areas of law there is no such thing as a static set of rules, but only a constantly evolving system of principles. You are expected to understand the law—in all of its ambiguity—through a critical examination of a series of cases that were decided according to such principles. You may feel lost, groping for answers to unarticulated questions. This is not merely normal, it is intended.

How the Case Method Works

In practical terms, the case method works like this: For every class meeting, you will be assigned a number of cases to read. The cases are the written judicial opinions rendered in court cases that were decided at the appellate level. (The reason for reading cases from courts of appeals or supreme courts is that such cases turn on issues of law, not of fact. If you are charged, tried, and convicted of murder and wish to appeal your case, you do not simply get a whole new trial at a higher level. You must argue that your conviction was improper, not that it was inaccurate.)

Your casebook will contain neither instructions nor explanations. Your assignments simply will be to read the cases and be in a position to answer questions based on them. There will be no written homework assignments, just cases, cases, and more cases.

You will write, for your own benefit, briefs of these cases. Briefs are your attempts to summarize the issues and laws around which a particular case revolves and to make sense of the court's findings in terms of similar cases. One way or another, your law school probably will tell you how to brief a case. If there's an optional seminar, you really ought to attend. In the event that you are left in the dark, it's utterly imperative that you find out how to brief a case. Google it. Ask a second year. Unless you are insanely brilliant, good briefing is really a key to getting good grades. Over the course of a semester, you will try to integrate the content of your case-briefs and your notes from in-class lectures, discussions, or dialogues into some kind of cohesive whole.

From Briefs to Outlines

Typically, you will take your copious briefs and class-notes and create an outline from which you will study for your final exams. Since almost all of your grade for a particular course will rest on your performance on the final, it is essential to establish a system that will allow you to recall the case appropriate for a given legal circumstance within an exam period.

This is especially true since most of your exams will be open book. Once you've see your case-books, you'll understand why having them on the day of the test will not be particularly helpful. Unless, of course, you have your outline handy. Outlines, whether you write your own, create them in a study group, or buy the commercial variety, will be an intrinsic part of this system. Don't neglect them. Your academic success rests on it.

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Discussion Forum
Why and How: Using the Case Study Method in the Law Classroom

Post by: Jackie Kim and Lisa Brem

Why should legal educators use case studies and other experiential teaching methods, such as role plays and simulations, in their classes? Hasn’t the Langdell method served legal education well these last 140 years? Certainly creating and using experiential materials requires a different set of skills from faculty, elicits a different response and level of engagement from students, and poses barriers to implementation. The ABA’s LEAPS Project [i] has a comprehensive list of objections to practical problem solving in the classroom: materials are time consuming and expensive to create and deploy; addition of a case study or simulation to a syllabus inherently displaces other material; and there are few incentives from law school leaders to introduce this type of teaching.

Yet, the argument promoting experiential materials and techniques is strong. The 2007 Carnegie Report [ii] recommended integrating lawyering skills practice into the curriculum alongside doctrinal courses, and the ABA added simulation courses to the list of practical experiences that can and should be offered by law schools in its 2015 Guidance Memo [iii] .

In a 2007 Vanderbilt Law Review article [iv] , HLS Dean Martha Minow and Professor Todd D. Rakoff argued that Langdell’s approach to teaching students using appellate cases does not do enough to prepare law students for real-world problems: “The fact is, Langdell’s case method is good for some things, but not good for others. We are not talking about fancy goals here; we are talking about teaching students ‘how to think like a lawyer.’”

But does the case study method result in a higher degree of student learning? While we have not yet seen a study on the efficacy of the case study method vs. the Langdell method in law schools, research [v] from political science professor Matthew Krain suggests that case studies and problem-based activities do enhance certain types of learning over other types of pedagogy. In his investigation, Krain compared the results of pre-and post-course surveys of students who participated in active learning with those who received a traditional lecture course. The case studies and problems that Krain used in his non-traditional classes included: case studies in the form of popular press articles, formal case studies, films, or problem-based case exercises that required students to produce a work product.

Krain found that:

Student-centered reflection, in which students have the opportunity to discuss their understanding of the case, allows both students and instructors to connect active learning experiences back to a larger theoretical context. Case learning is particularly useful for dramatizing abstract theoretical concepts, making seemingly distant events or issues seem more “authentic” or “real,” demonstrating the connection between theory and practice, and building critical-thinking and problem-solving skills (Inoue & Krain, 2014; Krain, 2010; Kuzma & Haney, 2001; Lamy, 2007; Swimelar, 2013).

This study suggests that case-based approaches have great utility in the classroom, and they should be used more often in instances where students’ understanding of conceptual complexity or knowledge of case details is critical. Moreover, case-based exercises can be derived from a variety of different types of materials and still have great utility. If deployed selectively in the context of a more traditional classroom setting as ways to achieve particular educational objectives, case-based approaches can be useful tools in our pedagogical toolbox.

For those who might be ready to try a case study, role play, or simulation, there are resources that can help. Harvard Law School produces case studies for use throughout the legal curriculum. The HLS Case Studies program publishes these teaching materials, and makes them available to educators, academic staff, students, and trainers. Outside of Harvard Law School, links to resources for educators implementing the case study method can be found on the Case Studies Program Resources page. Listed are case study affiliates at Harvard, legal teaching and learning tools, tips for case teaching, and free case materials. Examples include the Legal Education, ADR, and Practical Problem Solving (LEAPS) Project [vi] from the American Bar Association , which provides resources for various topics on legal education, and the Teaching Post , an educators’ forum offered by the Harvard Business School where professors can seek or provide advice on case study teaching.

“… [O]ur society is full of new problems demanding new solutions, and less so than in the past are lawyers inventing those solutions. We think we can, and ought to, do better.” – Dean Martha Minow & Professor Todd Rakoff. [vii]

[i] “Overcoming Barriers to Teaching ‘Practical Problem-Solving’.” Legal Education, ADR & Practical Problem-Solving (LEAPS) Project, American Bar Association, Section of Dispute Resolution. Accessed March 16, 2017, http://leaps.uoregon.edu/content/overcoming-barriers-teaching-%E2%80%9Cpractical-problem-solving%E2%80%9D. [ii] William M. Sullivan, Anne Colby, Judith Welch Wegner, Lloyd Bond, and Lee S. Shulman, “Educating Lawyers,” The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2007). [iii] American Bar Association, “Managing Director’s Guidance Memo,” Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2015). [iv] Martha Minow and Todd D. Rakoff, “A Case for Another Case Method,” Vanderbilt Law Review 60(2) (2007): 597-607. [v] Matthew Krain, “Putting the learning in case learning? The effects of case-based approaches on student knowledge, attitudes, and engagement,” Journal on Excellence in College Teaching 27(2) (2016): 131-153. [vi] “Overcoming Barriers to Teaching ‘Practical Problem-Solving’.” [vii] Minow and Rakoff.

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How to Analyze Case Law

Last Updated: January 21, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was written by Jennifer Mueller, JD . Jennifer Mueller is an in-house legal expert at wikiHow. Jennifer reviews, fact-checks, and evaluates wikiHow's legal content to ensure thoroughness and accuracy. She received her JD from Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 2006. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 126,374 times.

When you hear the word "law," you may assume the word refers to statutes passed by Congress and state legislatures. But a major portion of American law actually is case law – the rules appellate judges distill from their interpretation of statutes and other sources. Accordingly, much of law school is spent learning how to analyze case law. However, attending law school isn't strictly necessary to acquire this valuable skill. You can teach yourself how to analyze case law, which begins – but doesn't end – with a thorough reading of the court's written opinion.

Summarizing the Facts

The first time you read through a case, don't worry about trying to understand it. Just read for a sense of what's happening, who the major parties are, and what they want the court to do.
Keep in mind that legal opinions aren't written for laypeople, or even for law students or attorneys – they are written for other judges. If you don't understand something (assuming you're not an appellate court judge), there's nothing wrong with that.
You may have to go outside the opinion itself and look at other articles about the case, and then come back to it. For example, if you're reading a case that caused quite a stir in the media when it was decided, there will no doubt be newspaper and magazine articles about it. Reading those can help you better understand the court opinion.
Many cases have summaries that appear before the case and let you know the basics of what happened, the issue before the court, and how the court resolved that issue. The summary can be helpful, but don't use it as a substitute for an initial read-through of the case.

To make party identification even more confusing, party names may switch sides of the "v." in the case caption depending on who appealed. For example, suppose when a case began, Sally Sunshine sued Marvin Moon. The case's caption would be "Sunshine v. Moon." The trial court found in favor of Ms. Sunshine – but Mr. Moon appealed. The caption then became "Moon v. Sunshine."
To continue the example, suppose the appellate court found in favor of Mr. Moon, but Ms. Sunshine appealed that ruling to a higher court. Now the case's caption is "Sunshine v. Moon" again.
Since litigants in written opinions typically are only identified by their roles – appellant and appellee, for example – their names may only be mentioned once.

Step 3 Outline the case's procedural history.

Since the procedural history determines the role of the litigants, and thus what each of them is called throughout the written opinion, understanding how the case moved through the court system – who sued whom, and who appealed – is paramount to understanding the case.
At the same time, you don't need to go into too much detail here. You just need to understand who filed the original lawsuit (which will help you understand the facts of the case), the decision at trial, and who appealed and why.

At the appellate level, the courts are concerned with legal issues, not questions of fact. So, for example, if you are reading a case that came about as a result of a bar fight, the factual question of whether one party assaulted the other has already been resolved.
In many cases, the initial facts that prompted the dispute may be summarized in a sentence or two. Often, what's really important is what happened afterward.
Keep in mind that not all judges are the best writers. While you may be tempted to believe a particular fact is important because the judge who wrote the opinion spent several paragraphs discussing it, this is not necessarily the case.
As you read more and more cases, particularly if the cases you read are focused on a particular court, you will become familiar with the styles of individual judges. This can make it easier for you to immediately notice when the judge is focusing on facts he or she believes are central to the case's holding.

Identifying the Issue and Decision

Step 1 Determine the legal issue raised by the facts.

Essentially, you're looking for what the person who appealed the lower court's ruling wanted to happen, that didn't. To find the issue, you must figure out what that person thought the lower court did wrong, and why.
This usually isn't about something as simple as one person believing he should have been awarded more money, or a criminal defendant not wanting to go to jail. That might be part of an appellant's personal motivation, but to have a legitimate appeal you must be able to point to some way that the lower court made a legal error.
In many cases, the legal error isn't an obvious error. The lower court may have applied the law correctly – but the appellant is arguing that her case is different from the cases that developed the rule the lower court used, or that the lower court should have used a different rule.
Often in Supreme Court cases, there isn't a rule that can be handed down from previous cases and applied in this case, because no court has ever decided a case like this one. In these situations, it's up to the court to figure out how to tackle this new issue, and where it fits in to the long line of American jurisprudence.

Step 2 Phrase the issue as a yes/no question.

In some cases, the issue before the court involves multiple yes/no questions, or a follow-up question that is conditional on the answer to the first.
This usually happens when a particular factual situation present in the case has never been explored by any other court. The court must first determine whether a particular law applies to that factual situation at all before it can decide how the law applies.
For example, suppose a baker has been fined by the local government for creating cupcakes with expletives written in icing. The court may first have to determine whether icing on cupcakes is the sort of speech or expression protected by the First Amendment, before it can reach the real issue of whether the baker's First Amendment rights have been violated.

Step 3 Provide the court's answer to the question.

Some judges have a very clear, straightforward writing style, and they'll phrase the issue as a question and answer it directly. However, this isn't usually the case. In most written opinions, you should expect to dig for the question and answer, which you'll have to craft yourself.
When more than one question is asked, sometimes the answer to the first takes care of all the others. To look at the earlier cupcake-icing example, if the court had determined that no, icing on cupcakes is not protected by the First Amendment, the second question disappears. You don't have to consider whether the baker's First Amendment rights were violated by the fine, because she didn't have any First Amendment rights in the first place.
When the answer is qualified with a "sometimes," any conditional questions that follow likewise will have qualifications. #Note any significant dissents. In many cases, particularly at the Supreme Court level, a justice who disagrees with the majority will issue a dissent. As time passes and court interpretation evolves, a significant dissent may end up being a majority opinion later on when the court reverses or overturns an earlier decision. [12] X Research source
There also may be concurrences, which are separate opinions written by justices who agree with the ultimate outcome of the case, but not with the reasoning the majority applied to get there. Often a concurrence can help you understand the majority's reasoning, particularly if it seemed convoluted on first read.
Unless you understand where the case you're reading falls in the history and development of that particular area of law, you may not be able to recognize which other opinions are important until you do further research.
If you're unsure, it's best to simply note other opinions – be they dissents or concurrences – and the key difference between them and the majority's opinion.
Especially if you're reading a Supreme Court case, you also should note which justice authored the dissent or concurrence. As justices leave the court and are replaced, the values and judicial temperament of the majority also can change.
A dissent from a decade ago may become a majority opinion tomorrow – often written by the same justice, now carrying the majority where he or she once held a minority view.

Understanding the Reasoning

Step 1 Identify the legal rules used by the court.

Make note of the case from which the rule came, although typically it's not necessary for you to go back and read the case itself to understand the rule.
However, if a significant portion of the opinion discusses the previous case, you may want to go back and read it as well so you have a better understanding of what the court is talking about.
In some opinions (especially those penned by judges with straightforward writing styles), the rule used by the court will follow trigger phrases such as "the rule we apply is" or "we decide this case by applying the rule from" – phrases that alert you the court is about to tell you exactly what rule they used.
Most opinions won't be this direct, and require a closer analysis of the language to ascertain the rule the court used. Sometimes you can figure this out by working backwards. Read the court's decision, and then follow the court's train of logic in reverse until you reach the rule.

Step 2 Apply the rule to the facts of the case.

The application of a legal precedent to the facts of a case is the heart of legal analysis. This typically is done using similes. Seldom has the exact issue been presented before – to make a decision, the court must determine that this case is like a different case, and therefore the same rule should apply.
Keep in mind that, especially if you're analyzing a Supreme Court case, the court wouldn't have accepted that case on appeal if it didn't present a new issue that had not already been decided in an earlier case.
For this reason, there likely won't be a precedent that is entirely on point, or a previous case with the same fact pattern in which the same issue was raised and decided.
Rather, the court must compare cases to find a rule that applies closely and is based on a similar situation that is analogous to the dispute presented.

Step 3 Highlight facts the court found most important.

Sometimes the easiest way to locate the court's pivotal fact or facts is to consider what would have happened if they'd chosen to focus on a different fact.
For example, if the court in the case of the beleaguered baker had decided to focus on the fact that cupcakes are food, and food has never been protected under the First Amendment, it might have arrived at a different decision than it did. Because the court focused instead on the fact that the baker wrote words with icing, just as writers write words in ink, and concluded that written words inarguably enjoy First Amendment protection.
Although many other facts may be relevant, or important to some other aspect of the case, those aren't the facts that made the court rule the way it did.

Step 4 Consider how the rule would apply to different facts.

No court case exists in isolation. Once a court issues a decision, the legal interpretation and rules it establishes become part of the larger body of law devoted to that particular issue. Each opinion helps future courts understand more about the statute or constitutional provision at the heart of the case.
You don't have to wait for future courts to apply the rule you've just learned to other cases, however. Take the facts in the original case and twist them slightly, then apply the rule yourself.
Law professors call these imaginary cases "hypotheticals," and spend a good portion of class churning them out and asking their students to apply the rule they've learned to sometimes bizarre and convoluted stories.

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About This Article

Case law refers to the decisions appellate judges make from their interpretations of former cases. To analyze specific case law, you’ll need to read the case through and try to get a feel for how the court made their decision. It can be pretty complex when you’re first reading a case, so jot down the main parties, the main dispute, and a brief history of the case to help yourself keep track. Once you understand the case, try to identify the legal rules the court used to make their decision. It’s also helpful to imagine different scenarios where the rule the case established could be applied, and whether or not the outcome would be the same. To learn how to focus on the most important facts of a case, read more from our Legal co-author! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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US Case Law

The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. Lower courts on the federal level include the US Courts of Appeals, US District Courts, the US Court of Claims, and the US Court of International Trade and US Bankruptcy Courts. Federal courts hear cases involving matters related to the United States Constitution, other federal laws and regulations, and certain matters that involve parties from different states or countries and large sums of money in dispute.

Each state has its own judicial system that includes trial and appellate courts. The highest court in each state is often referred to as the “supreme” court, although there are some exceptions to this rule, for example, the New York Court of Appeals or the Maryland Court of Appeals. State courts generally hear cases involving state constitutional matters, state law and regulations, although state courts may also generally hear cases involving federal laws. States also usually have courts that handle only a specific subset of legal matters, such as family law and probate.

Case law, also known as precedent or common law, is the body of prior judicial decisions that guide judges deciding issues before them. Depending on the relationship between the deciding court and the precedent, case law may be binding or merely persuasive. For example, a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is binding on all federal district courts within the Fifth Circuit, but a court sitting in California (whether a federal or state court) is not strictly bound to follow the Fifth Circuit’s prior decision. Similarly, a decision by one district court in New York is not binding on another district court, but the original court’s reasoning might help guide the second court in reaching its decision.

Decisions by the US Supreme Court are binding on all federal and state courts.

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The program’s portfolio of situational case studies presents narratives of real-life events and asks students to identify and analyze the relevant legal, social, business, ethical, and scientific issues involved. Playing the role of protagonist in each case study—such as a private attorney counseling a biotechnology company facing hazardous waste issues, or a federal official seeking to develop an effective fishery management plan—students formulate appropriate strategies for achieving workable solutions to conflicts, then discuss and debate their recommendations in class. This interactive approach to learning bolsters students’ acquisition of skills in critical areas: factual investigation, legal research, counseling, persuasive oral communication, and recognition and resolution of ethical dilemmas, to name a few.

The Stanford Law School Case Studies Collection is an exciting innovation in law school teaching designed to hone students’ problem-solving skills and stimulate creativity. The Collection includes situational case studies and interactive simulations (collectively referred to as “Case Materials”) that place students in the roles of lawyers and policy makers and teach fundamental lawyering skills such as investigating facts, counseling, and resolving ethical dilemmas.

In June of 1997 the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Policy Program hired an experienced environmental lawyer to develop “situational” case studies for use in classroom instruction to better prepare students for the practice of law in the real world. Most of the case studies have been field tested in the classroom and evaluated for effectiveness in increasing student mastery of fundamental lawyering skills and increasing student participation in classroom discussion. Feedback from students has been excellent. Stanford Law School plans to unveil case studies collections in the areas of Law and Business in the coming years.

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As used in our website, the phrase “case materials” refers to case studies and simulations, as well as accompanying exhibits and teaching notes. While both case studies and simulations can be used as tools in the “case study teaching method,” they are different in form and manner of use. A case study is a narrative that recounts the factual history of an event or series of events. It is typically used as the basis for in-class analysis and discussion. A simulation is a set of facts, roles and rules that establishes the framework for an in-class participatory exercise.

Research has shown that existing law school teaching methods and curricula do not adequately teach students the full complement of “lawyering” skills they need to competently practice law. The traditional appellate case method assumes that a problem has reached a point where litigation is the only alternative, and presents students with a scenario in which all relevant issues have been identified, the questions of law narrowly focused, and the questions of fact resolved. Skills-oriented courses and clinical programs (such as law clinics and externships) have made significant contributions to law schools’9 ability to teach lawyering skills. Their reach, however, has been limited by a combination of factors, including their high cost and the relatively few law students who actually take advantage of these programs.

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How to Read a Law School Casebook

Excerpt reproduced from guide to the study of law: an introduction , second edition (lexisnexis 2001) by l.h. larue chapter 2: reading the law school casebook.

In the first chapter, I talked about rules, and in particular, about getting used to the way that lawyers use rules as the starting place for an argument. In passing, I mentioned “cases.” I said that arguments were presented in cases, but I didn't explain what a case was. However there are some things that need to be explained; let me start with the most obvious and simplistic facts. In law school, law students study from casebooks.

There are textbooks for most courses; these textbooks are useful; for example, they are a convenient reference when one starts a research project. However, we don’t usually deal with the textbooks in class; instead, in class we deal with casebooks, and the cases. Consequently, beginning law students must learn a new skill, how to read cases. The art, or skill, of reading a case well is less difficult than is the skill of reading well when one reads a poem or a mathematical proof. However, there are difficulties, many of which rest on the fact that the beginner lacks knowledge of many of the relevant background facts that those who are more experienced take for granted.

In the chapter on rules, I have already given some advice that is useful in reading cases, namely, that one must be alert to the possibility that there will be some unusual and perhaps even startling “moves” in the arguments that are presented. The judicial opinion goes along routinely, and then there are some surprises. The argument takes a turn that can surprise one who is new to the game. One must be alert for such twists and turns. In addition, there are some other things that are good to know: first, there is some useful information about courts; and second, there is some advice about technique. Picking up the relevant background information is rather easy, but learning good technique is harder.

§ 2.01 Background Information

One should start by asking: What is a case?, and how is it produced? The word “case” is a shorthand expression, and like all shorthand expressions it can be misleading.

When we refer to a “case,” we are speaking of the “opinion” written by the judges of an appellate court. (By the way, there are some interesting historical questions about the judicial practice of writing opinions. Why did it develop? How has it changed? What differences in this judicial practice can one discover? Are the differences important?)

This phrase, “appellate court,” is a technical phrase among lawyers. Like most technical phrases, it is meant to mark off a distinction, and in this case the distinction is the contrast between a trial court and an appellate court. When people go to court and fight for their rights, they go to a trial court. Appellate courts don't try cases; they hear appeals from the trial courts.

It follows that three things have to happen before we ever get an appellate opinion. First, someone must take a problem to court, and this problem, this dispute, must go all the way through the trial process. Second, the outcome of this trial process must be unsatisfactory to at least one of the participants in the trial, and this lack of satisfaction must be intense enough to lead to an appeal. And finally, the appellate court must take the case, decide it, and write an opinion. In other words, an appellate opinion is a rare event in the totality of legal events. Rare is perhaps not the best word, but I want to emphasize that appellate courts and their opinions are a small part of the world of the law. The rarity of the appellate opinion can be illustrated, although not explained, by statistics.

Of course, statistics won't show the number of times people do not take disputes to court, and so any statistical analysis must begin a few steps too late in the overall process of law. We have no statistics on the number of times people go to a lawyer’s office and are told not to sue.

Furthermore, we have no statistics on the number of times people have disputes and do not even consult with a lawyer. However, let us ignore these limitations and summarize the statistics that we do have, using the information for a recent year.

The statistics for the courts of the United States, the national or “federal” courts, are set forth in the Statistical Abstract of the U.S., which is published by the Bureau of the Census. In the 1999 volume, the most recent set of numbers cover the year 1997. (Tables 370, 371, and 372.) There are three levels of courts in the national system: the District Courts, which is the place one goes to start a lawsuit; the Courts of Appeals, which review the work of the District Courts; and the Supreme Court, which reviews the work of the Courts of Appeals and of the Supreme Courts of the several states. As one goes from the bottom to the top, the number of cases filed drops dramatically. Rounding off the numbers, one goes from 300,000 to 50,000 to 2,500. (Actually, the Supreme Court has a total of 7,500 cases filed, but about 5,000 of those are pauper cases, filed by prisoners who lack money, and these cases get only cursory review, so I have subtracted them from the total.) And if one looks at the numbers for the state systems, the numbers are even more dramatic. In other words, when we look at the cases decided by the United States Supreme Court, or by the Supreme Court of one of the States, we are looking at the tip of the iceberg.

Furthermore, the statistics understate what a rare event a Supreme Court case (national or state) really is. Consider the beginning of the whole process, the act of taking a problem, a dispute, to court. This is a rare event. People do not generally take their legal problems to court. (I know that we Americans have the reputation for being litigious, and compared to the rest of the world, we are. But even so, most disputes are not taken to court.) People sometimes fail to sue because they are afraid to sue, or they just do not want to cause trouble, or maybe they can’t afford to sue, or it could be that they are ignorant about what one needs to do to take a lawsuit to court. It may be unjust that this is so, but failing to sue because of inertia, poverty, or ignorance is common.

However, sometimes the failure to go to court is based on better reasons. For example, there may have been negotiation and compromise, and if the process of negotiation was fair and accompanied by good faith, then the out of court settlement is probably just.

At any rate, whatever the explanation, most legal disputes are not taken to a court of law.

Even if a dispute is taken to a court, it is not likely that it will be appealed. Once it gets to court, the parties may decide that it is in their interest to forgo the trial and settle. Alternatively, the judge may give a decision that is satisfactory. And of course, an appeal costs money, so even those who are unsatisfied may not appeal. In short, there are good reasons why a case may not be tried and then, even if it is tried, there may be good reasons why it is not appealed.

Finally, if it gets to the appellate court, we still may not get an opinion. The appellate judges may give the case a rather summary treatment: they may decide that the appeal is frivolous and so they might refuse to look at the case; or if they look at it, they may dispose of it by way of a simple order, and they may publish no more than two or three lines of explanation about what they are doing. Consequently, a full dress opinion, the sort of thing that one reads in casebooks, is not routine, even if the case gets to the appellate level. For example, consider the 2,500 cases in the United States Supreme Court; in only 100 of those will there be a full oral argument by counsel and formal written opinions by the court.

If I could use a metaphor, I would say that the appellate opinion stands to the world of the law as the autopsy report stands to the world of medicine. So long as one is alive and well, and indeed, even if one is sick, there is no autopsy report. If there is a death, it is still not likely that there will be an autopsy report; the percentage of deaths in which there is an autopsy report is rather small. And finally, even if we get an autopsy, it may be rather summary, and the report may be highly abbreviated.

Since the appellate opinion is such a small slice of the law, there is a sense in which the study of the appellate opinion is not the study of the law in any simple (or simplistic) sense of that phrase, “the study of law.” Instead, one uses the appellate opinion as a lens through which to look at the larger world of the law. Like any lens, it distorts, but sometimes it can focus events and put them into an interesting perspective. Looking through this lens, one can see lawyers and judges at work, although one can only see part of their work; furthermore, we can focus the lens on different slices of the part.

Consequently, different professors are able to use cases to focus on different aspects of the law. Some of us are interested in the logic of the ideas and concepts that are used in legal rhetoric. Others of us are interested in the political agenda of those who try to use the law for social purposes. Some of us are interested in the historical developments of the law; others in its current consequences. One can use the lens of the appellate opinion to focus on any of these things, and indeed, on many other things.

However, regardless of these differences, the case is the starting place, and there are difficulties that arise for most students because of certain features of an appellate opinion.

§ 2.02 The Fundamental Difficulty in Reading Opinions

The main problem that a beginner has arises from the following fact: the opinions were not written with the law student in mind. The opinions were written by judges for other judges, and for lawyers. For example, a lawyer will take a case on appeal and will argue that the judge made a mistake at trial. In the appellate opinion, this question of the alleged mistake will be the focus of the discussion, and the appellate judge is not going to spend very much time talking about the undisputed matters. However, law students routinely have trouble understanding the importance of the disputed question unless they also understand the background of undisputed questions of law that are not being discussed. The beginner is thrown into the world of the law, and quite often, into the deep end of the pool.

I can put the problem by way of a hyperbole: law students study law by reading opinions that are written on the assumption that they already know law. It's sort of like learning to ride a bicycle by jumping on and starting to ride. There is no way to start except by starting; a legal dictionary will help; it will also help if one can tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty. It may also help if one remembers that dealing with unstated assumptions is something that one has done rather often in life. In any conversation, people say things that make sense only against a background of common understandings, which are unstated. When one reads historical documents, such a speeches, letters, and diaries from time past, one often has to do a little digging to discover those things which are taken for granted and left unsaid, but which are also essential to understanding the words that have come down to us.

Perhaps I can illustrate this phenomenon by going back to the burglary example of Chapter One. Imagine a case in which the facts are clear that the defendant broke into the victim’s dwelling, in which the facts are also clear that the defendant stole something while in the dwelling, but in which the facts are not at all clear, indeed, highly ambiguous, about when the defendant informed the intent to steal. If the defendant were to be convicted, we can imagine an appeal in which the defendant's lawyer would argue that the jury's resolution of the ambiguity was unreasonable. Since I have discussed this hypothetical already, one who has read Chapter One will understand why the issue of timing, of when the intent was formed, is so crucial. But imagine someone coming to the appellate opinion without the background of reading Chapter One. Unless one knows that the actus reus and the mens rea must happen at the same time, then any discussion of when the defendant formed the intent to steal will seem bizarre (we do not normally discuss the timing of an intent), and yet the author-judge of the opinion might fail to spell out the assumption that compels a discussion of “the when” of an intent. To an insider, the assumption is obvious and need not be stated; to the beginner, who is an outsider scrambling to get in, the assumption will not be obvious.

There is no easy way to deal with unstated assumptions, and so I have no simplistic recommendation. Sometimes one must “wing it.” Sometimes the only thing to do is to just read the material and hope that all will become clear in class. A more promising strategy is to ask others. Perhaps a classmate knows the crucial unstated assumption; discussion of the material, both before and after class is quite likely to improve ones understanding. Perhaps a second or third year student will help. Furthermore, the instructor and the editors of the casebook may have recommended collateral reading; sometimes these materials have the missing key. Sometimes all that one needs to do is to re-read the case. Perhaps one read too quickly and did not notice a crucial detail. But by far the most important thing is not to panic. Everyone who has ever gone to law school has had the same problem; we all got through it. I can guarantee that the problem of unstated assumptions will become less severe as time passes.

§ 2.03 Breaking a Case into its Elements

Given the difficulty of teasing out the unstated assumptions, one needs a good technique for reading the cases and preparing for class. Since one is being thrown into the deep end of the pool, it is prudent to wear a “life preserver.” Thrashing about aimlessly is both tiring and dangerous; it is better to have a good strategy. As a general rule, the best strategy is “divide and conquer.” The big problem, as I have just stated, is to learn the assumptions that underlie legal argument, but attacking this problem head on can be frustrating; the problem is too big. So one should break the problem down into pieces that are small enough to be within one's grasp. The immediate problem is reading cases in order to prepare for class, and so one needs to break down the big problem into a series of smaller problems by having a disciplined technique for dissecting cases. The time honored technique is called “briefing a case;” one writes a short, that is, brief, outline of the salient features of the case. However, there is more than one way to brief a case; what follows is my advice, not everyone’s advice.

I recommend that one begin by focusing on the overall structure of the case; one should try to understand the overall picture of: (1) what has happened that has provoked someone to take this case to court; (2) what happened at the trial court that has provoked someone to appeal; (3) what did the higher court do with this case. (By the way, there are manuals that describe a more complicated way of briefing a case. I think that the customary advice of these standard manuals is too complicated for the beginner, and so I have an alternative proposal. However, caveat emptor : the reader should be warned that my advice is somewhat non-standard.)

In other words, one should understand the history of the case. There are three stages: (1) from the world to the lower court; (2) from the lower court to the higher court; (3) from the higher court to a disposition. One should break down the opinion and identify which parts of it talk about each of these three stages of the case.

When one writes up a brief, one should be brief; don't try to write down everything; write down the essence of the matter. My advice is to concentrate on the movement, the “from-to” of a move. (1) From the world to the court: not everything that has happened in the world, but the things that have happened that have led someone to go to court. (2) From lower to higher: not everything that the trial judge did, but the things done that are the basis for the appeal. (3) From higher to disposition: not everything that is said, but the core of it, the key move in the argument that yields the result.

§ 2.04 From the World to the Trial Court

Breaking the opinion down in the way that I have just suggested is not too hard. At first, it is confusing, but anything that is new will normally require some experience before one becomes handy at it. However, there is a subtlety here that is tricky, and experience alone will not make it easy. The tricky and difficult aspect of briefing a case is something that a beginner is not likely to appreciate, that is, the technical vocabulary. Since this is so important, I wish to emphasize its importance.

Consider the first stage, the movement from the world to the trial court. My advice, as set forth above, was that one should ask: what happened that led someone to take this case to court? The problem here is: how do we describe what happened? Do we describe the “what happened” using the ordinary colloquial vocabulary of the average speaker of English? Or do we use the technical vocabulary of the law? The best answer is – both. But the minimum answer is – use the technical vocabulary. Let me explain what is at stake in answering this question, since the answer that I have just given may seem rather confusing.

Suppose that a Good Guy says that a Bad Guy ran into him with an automobile. We can describe this event in many different ways. An automotive engineer would probably describe it rather differently than would the average person. However, if we take this case to court, it will be described in both the ordinary idiom of the witnesses and in the language of the law. For example, are we to say that the Bad Guy committed a crime, for which he may be fined or imprisoned? If so, then we must use the technical vocabulary of the criminal law. (What are the elements of the offense for which the Bad Guy has been charged? What sort of proof must the prosecutor introduce to prove these elements?) On the other hand, we might be saying that the Bad Guy committed a civil wrong for which he might have to pay damages, and then we would have to use the vocabulary of the law of torts. (The plaintiff’s lawyer must prove the elements of the claim? What are they?) In this lecture, I cannot even begin to introduce the complexity of this vocabulary. But I do wish to insist upon its importance.

Perhaps the metaphor of “translation” will be helpful. When things that happen in the world are taken into court, they are “translated” in several senses of that useful word. In the physical sense (“to translate” is “to carry across”), we take the witnesses and documents into the courtroom and present them to the judge and the jury. And in the linguistic sense, which is the sense that I wish to emphasize, we substitute legal language for colloquial language. Of course, people do speak colloquial English in courtrooms; indeed, on a percentage basis, colloquial phrases outnumber technical ones. However, those sentences that are strategically and tactically crucial are technical.

Recall that in the last lecture I discussed a hypothetical in which someone sawed the lock off a garage door, opened it, and walked in. When the case like this is presented in court, we say that the defendant is charged with “burglary” and that the act that I have just mentioned – sawing through the lock, etc. – is described as “breaking and entering.” In the context of this lecture, I would like to emphasize that one must master this technical vocabulary. We translate the events into the technical language of the criminal law.

There are two mistakes that a beginner can make: ignoring the technical jargon; becoming seduced by it. One can't ignore it. When cases are presented in court, lawyers do not present them as generalized grievances. The plaintiff in a civil case, and the prosecution in a criminal case, do not present a generalized argument that the defendant is a bad guy who has done bad things. Instead, specific legal claims are presented, and there is no way that one can assert a specific legal claim without using the language of the law.

However, one must not be seduced by this language; one must not fall into the trap of supposing that this legal jargon can be taken at face value. Consider again the phrase “breaking and entering.” It has some meanings in the law that will surprise you and that are completely unpredictable. The colloquial sense of the word “breaking” connotes some violence and force; however, when you study criminal law, you will find out that entries that seem quite peaceful, to the ordinary eye, are classified as a “breaking.” This phenomenon of unanticipated meanings is routine, but if you have studied a foreign language and considered problems of translation, it should not be a total surprise to you. Perfectly ordinary words, such as “carry” or “work,” can have radically different connotations in different languages.

I wish that I could say more about the process of “translation,” but I cannot do so unless I exceed the scope of an introduction. The techniques for translating ordinary grievances into legal claims are the core of the lawyer’s art, and indeed, the study of this art will be one of your principal tasks. However, I cannot anticipate here the full range of what you will study in law school, so let me move to the next step in briefing, about which it is possible to be more specific.

§ 2.05 From the Trial Court to the Appellate Court

The next stage in a case, the next step toward having an appellate opinion, is the trip from the lower court to the higher court, from the trial court to the appellate court. The historical explanation is simple enough; those who have lost think that they should have won, and they can afford to appeal. But there is a problem here. One can’t go to the appellate court and say that the trial judge was a jerk and an idiot, and then argue that the appellate court ought to go through the case all over again and do justice.

The simplest reason that one can't make such a straightforward plea is a reason of time and other resources. If the higher court judges were to make a practice of re-trying the cases that lower court judges have already tried, then we would need as many appellate judges as we have trial judges. But we have far fewer. Given the statistics, one can't ask the appellate courts to redo what has already been done, which is try the case. Instead, one does something that has a more limited scope; the lawyer who manages the appeal must point out some particular error that the trial judge has made. It is not enough to complain about the result generally. One must be particular; one must point to some particular act that the trial judge did in the course of the trial and say that this particular act was an error.

Of course, as a practical matter, the only reason for caring about an error is that one cares about the result. The result is what counts. However, the lawyer must “translate” the client’s displeasure with the result into more formal terms. Just as lawyers take generalized complaints about what happened in the world and translate the complaints into legal claims, so too lawyers take a generalized disappointment with the results in trials and translate them into assignments of error. To be sure, one must complain about the result; however, one does not complain about it directly. One complains about the result via an error. One tries to identify an error that has led to a bad result, i.e. , to an error that has harmed the client.

This limitation, i.e. , that one must specify a particular error, is not a logical requirement; it is a practical requirement. But at any rate, for a lawyer, it is a requirement, it is one of the facts of life. Since it is a requirement, the law student must read cases with this particular fact, this fact of life, in mind. As you read the case, ask yourself: what is the error about which the lawyer is complaining? As to this, I can offer specific advice, since the errors which one may allege, the so-called assignments of error, are limited in number. My advice is to think about the case in terms of the sequence of its drama; the progress of a case is highly stylized; the drama varies from case to case, but the sequence is always the same. Let me now describe this sequence; I shall describe a civil case with a jury, ignoring non-jury trials and criminal trials.

The case always starts with the plaintiff filing a pleading. At this point, the defendant can object. The defendant can say: “Why that’s the silliest piece of paper that I have ever seen; even if you believe everything in it, I still haven’t done anything wrong.” Of course, it will be said more formally, and some special jargon will be used; however, that is the gist of what might be said. At this point, the judge must rule; the judge must say whether this assertion is well founded. The judge can rule in favor of either side; whichever way the judge rules, someone will be unhappy, and it may be that this ruling about the pleadings is the error that is assigned on the appeal.

But then again, maybe it isn't; it may be that the next stage of the trial is the problem.

The next stage of the proceedings are called the “pre-trial.” We call everything that follows the pleadings but precedes the actual trial, the part where the witnesses get up and tell their story, by the name “pre-trial.” Lots of things happen at pre-trial; we decide what the issues are going to be, gather evidence, and so forth. Needless to say, something can go wrong at this stage, and the assignment of error may relate to this. For example, one might ask for the right to inspect an opponent’s records, and inspection might have been denied.

The next stage is the trial itself. At this point, each side will put forth its witnesses, its documents, and so forth. And of course, there can be lots of complaints about this process. As for the evidence that is let in, there will be arguments that it should have been kept out. As for the evidence that was kept out, it can be argued that it should have been let in.

After the evidence is in, we can get another round of assertions that the case should be ended. The defendant can say: “Well, now that you have seen the evidence, you can see that I was right; there is nothing to this case.” The plaintiff will argue in response to this that the case must go to the jury. Alternatively, the plaintiff might say: “The evidence is overwhelming; you ought to give me a victory right now.” And defendant can counter that it must go to the jury.

The trial judge will have to rule on these assertions, and the assignment of error might be about these rulings. In other words, the trial judge may rule that the case overwhelmingly favors either the plaintiff or the defendant, or alternatively, the judge may rule that the case should go to the jury. No matter which of these three possibilities is chosen, someone may assign it as error.

If the judge lets the case go to the jury, then there must be what we call “instructions.”

The judge has to tell the jury what the law is; we call this, giving instructions to the jury, or instructing the jury. By now, you know how my story goes; one can object to these instructions, claiming that they are erroneous.

All of this may sound very complicated, but it only sounds complicated because it is new.

Furthermore, it must seem as though a lawsuit is like a minefield; there are too many ways to make an error. True enough, but there is a redeeming fact; most errors don’t make any difference to the way that things come out, and one does not have to worry about harmless errors. (In your courses, you will learn the details about the “harmless error” principle.)

The most important thing for a law student to know is that the trial goes through its stages, and that lawyers who take cases to an appellate court are arguing that the trial judge made a mistake at one of these stages. Furthermore, I can simplify the possibilities: very few civil cases involve an appeal on the grounds of the pleadings or the pre-trial. Most appeals are about the trial itself.

As for the trial, one can ask three questions, and these will suffice for most of the cases in the casebooks. The judge made decisions about whether to admit or exclude evidence: Is the appeal on these evidentiary decisions? The judge made a decision about whether to let the case go to the jury: Is the appeal about this? The judge made decisions about how to instruct the jury: Is the appeal about these instructions?

If one breaks it down in this way — Was the right sort of evidence admitted?, Did the evidence create a jury question?, How should the jury be instructed? — then one will be able to sort through the technicalities of most cases. I am frank to admit that these technicalities sometimes get in the way of doing justice; one must read with this in mind. However, you must master these technicalities; the question is whether you master them, or let them master you.

§ 2.06 The Appellate Court Reaches a Result

The third stage of the process is the appellate court and its opinion. What did they do with the case? There is not much that they can do, so this is a fairly straightforward question; they can approve or disapprove of what was done. If they approve, then they can let stand what was done. If they disapprove, then they can send it back and tell the trial court to do something different.

Recall what was said about the comparison in numbers between trial judges and appellate judges: appellate judges do not re-try the case. When I made this point before, I was emphasizing the relevance of these statistics to the practice of appeals; I said then that one couldn't get the appellate judges to look at the whole case; one had to point out some error.

These statistics are still relevant, but now in a different context. Suppose one has convinced the appellate judges that an error was made. Will they step in and try to correct the error themselves? No. They will send it back to the trial judge and have that judge do something. For example, suppose that the appellate judges think that the case should have been dismissed. They will not dismiss it. They will send it back to the trial judge with instructions for the trial judge, telling that judge to dismiss the case.

Once one understands what the appellate judges have done, then the next task is understanding why they did it. They will give many reasons; sometimes they write long opinions that have all sorts of reasons. The student's job is to pick out which of these are most important. Of course, this may require that one “read between the lines.” Sometimes judges are reluctant to be frank about how they have decided a case. Another possibility is that the judges were willing to be frank, but that they have not expressed what they are doing with clarity. A good deal of class discussion will be about this problem of the “real” reason.

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Mar 3, 2021

Law School 101: Tips on How to Effectively Write Case Digests

By: Archiebald Faller Capila

Barrista Solutions lists effective tips on how to digest cases.

Aside from the common works of memorizing codal provisions, understanding legal doctrines, and reading the annotations of legal luminaries, there are still some tasks in law school that law students need to finish.

Among the additional works required to be submitted are the written or type-written case digests in different subjects. Most, if not all professors, require their students to submit specific sets of digests in order to improve the memory of those writing them. It is a proven fact that retention is better if and when students write what they are reading. Accordingly, professors see this as a tool in order to help their students learn more about various topics.

Case digests have been in law school since time immemorial. They have been said to be additional tasks for law students so that the latter may have a better understanding of the landmark cases which explain several laws and doctrines our legal system has adopted. While some law students see this as a task without a point, law professors from all over the country beg to disagree. For professors of the law, case digests must be submitted in order to inculcate discipline to law students—a character which is eventually carried out in practice.

However, most law students have a hard time writing them. Not only because some cases are kilometric in nature, but also because understanding such text-heavy materials is a different kind of burden. In several interviews with some students of the law, they see case digests as assignments that only give additional burden in the study. However, some law students believe that these case digests help them better understand an assigned case and even help them craft a good understanding of the facts, issues, and decision of an important cause. Accordingly, according to them, they better understand a case if it is them who crafted the digest and if it is them who fully discussed a case for a specific subject.

But, as mentioned, writing a case digests is not for everyone. In line with our advocacy to help students in several aspects of the study of law, we compiled some tips which would help you finish such a daunting task. In order to write an effective case digest, Barrista Solutions came up with a shortlist of tips on how to help law students write an effective case digest. Take a look at the steps on how to ease the burden of finishing the said task.

Know the syllabus first

Cases decided by the Supreme Court often explain a multitude of topics and doctrines. If you are a beginner in reading a full-text of the case and eventually writing a digest, it will be hard to determine what your professor wants to see. Accordingly, a case includes several subject matters that may not even be related to the topic of the syllabus.

In order to be effective, you must first read the syllabus and look at the topic where the case is included before reading the full text. In that way, you will be able to know what the relevant details are.

If the professor did not give a syllabus, take a look at the prescribed textbook of your professor and look at the Table of Contents of the same. More often than not, this will point out the specific topic or the most relevant topic to which the case is assigned. If there are multiple topics in which the case is designated, jot them all down and compare the same to where you are with respect to the discussion and recitations of the professor. In that way, you will know if whether your topics are behind or ahead. This is the first thing you should do before engaging in the next steps of writing a digest.

Read the full-text of the case

One of the misconceptions in reading the full-text of the case is that one needs to understand the whole of the text. This is not entirely true. As mentioned, a case decided by the Supreme Court has a multitude of topics that are discussed exhaustively. From substantive to procedural aspects, these topics are more often than not taxing and text-heavy.

Go back to tip number one and know the syllabus. If you know the topic which is related to the case you are studying, then it is now easy to read through the text of the case. In reading the full-text, it is not necessary that you memorize word for word the pronouncement of the Supreme Court. What is important is that you are able to single out specific facts, issues, and ruling that are related to the topics assigned for you to read.

Upon knowing the issue which you are assigned to read, it will already be easy to spot the proper facts and issues of the case. Understanding the full text before proceeding with writing the digest is important for you to retain the proper knowledge and wisdom behind the decision.

In short, do not rush into writing the digest. Understand first the topics of the case assigned so you can write your case digest effectively and efficiently. Accordingly, you will be able to retain in full what you have read and what you will eventually write. It will help you better understand your reading assignments as well.

Divide your digest into three parts

There are only three important parts in a case digest: the FACTS, the ISSUE, and the RULING. Upon knowing the topic you are looking for, you must be able to pinpoint these three elements in what you are reading. Remember that you must only write the relevant details pertaining to the assigned topic.

For the FACTS, you must take into consideration the pertinent discussions of the Court. Irrelevant and minute details should be dispensed with. Only write or type those which are important under your assigned topic. Backstories are not necessary UNLESS they are relatively connected to the outcome of the case. For the ISSUE, check on whether or not the topic of the case assigned is under a substantive or procedural discussion. Remember that the Supreme Court discusses these two aspects of a case. If the subject in which the case is assigned focuses on the substantive aspect of the law, then the issue of the case digest must focus on the same. If the subject in which the case is assigned focuses on the procedural aspect of the law, then the issue of the case digest must focus on the same. Do not include in your case digest issues not related to the topic. For the RULING, answer the issue you posited in the case digest.

For example, the issue is “Whether or not X is an employee of Y”

The decision or ruling should only discuss that issue. In answering the same, you must point out the elements of an employer-employee relationship, the relevant facts of the case, and the explanation of the Supreme Court in ruling the same. You do not have to include other circumstances not related to the issue you just wrote or included.

Avoid including irrelevant details

The essence of a case digest is that it is a shortened version of the actual decision. Refrain from including in your case digest irrelevant details such as the history of the case, backgrounders on the topics at hand, and matters not related to the main issue of the case.

A case digest is only effective if it summarizes the FACTS, ISSUES, and the RULING. By including irrelevant details, you will be destroying the purpose of a case digest which is to put into perspective the most important facets of the case assigned. The point of a case digest is to present in a concise manner what the case is all about and what should eventually be highlighted for a particular topic. Unless required by a professor, a law student should refrain from including in his work unnecessary words which would not only lengthen the digest but make it ineffective as well

Don’t change the text of the case

One of the common misconceptions in writing a digest is paraphrasing the decision. One must remember that the text of the case is binding. One misplaced word could change the very essence of the decision. Remember to write in verbatim what you want to include in your digest. Don’t take shortcuts. Don’t change the wordings of the Court.

In several cases decided by the Court, it was held that what is binding is not only the thought of the Supreme Court but the words written as well. If a law student tries to change or inadvertently deletes or adds a word, he or she is already committing a mistake. The word of the Supreme Court must be quoted as is where is every time there arises an opportunity to do so. In case digests, considering that these are shortened versions of the full-text decision, they must mirror the words the Supreme Court used.

One wrong word or punctuation mark could lead to an entire change in the decision. As discussed in several cases of Statutory Construction, these minute but important details must be given due attention so as to avoid altering what the Supreme Court means to discuss in a particular topic of the case.

Limit it to one or two pages

As mentioned earlier, the essence of writing a case digest is to shorten the actual decision of the Court. It would be contrary to the essence if you will be writing or producing a case digest with a lot of pages. Limiting your work to one or two pages would be appropriate not only for the professor reading your work but for you as well.

Do not listen to those who are saying that the longer the digest, the better. The essence of a case digest is to mirror the Supreme Court’s words as short as possible, without sacrificing the integrity of the case. If you really followed the steps mentioned before this last tip, then you will be able to streamline your reading assignment in a manner that it would not exceed two pages.

A better understanding of the case would lead to a short but effective case digest.

These are just some of the basic tips on how to effectively write a case digest. To all those law students who will be applying this strategy, may you all be able to grasp the essence of our means, and may this help you in your journey to become a lawyer.

For more tips, view more articles on Law School 101 .

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Law School 101

How To Write A Case Study In Law Exam: Expert Guide

Writing a case study can be a challenging task for law students as it requires a lot of thinking. The situation gets worse when you have to write a case study for a law exam. As it is a part and parcel of law exams, it is impossible to evade it. Hence, you should do everything possible to master this subject and write it excellently.

How To Write A Case Study In Law Exam

To curate any case study, you should consider the following facts:

In-depth analysis: You should study a subject in-depth which is quintessential. Deep analysis of a subject ensures that you don’t miss out on any part of the subject unturned.

Take Notes: It is always important to note down the important points and facts of the subject that you study.

Gather facts: To ensure the accuracy of your study, it is necessary that you make a note of the facts.

Get perfect solutions: Your first step is to identify the problem and look out for ways to get perfect solutions.

A law case study is a detailed and intensive study of a person, group, or social phenomenon. Usually, you conduct a study on a case that is solved by a judge. It investigates a problem, analyses solutions with supporting evidence. A case study helps you determine the success or failure of a case. You can use the law to solve various case scenarios. Check civil judge salary .

While you have an overview of case studies in law exams, now it’s time to understand how to write a case study in a law exam.

[Download Free Study Material For Judiciary Exams by Judiciary Gold]

How to write a case study in a law exam?

Read to understand

Once you identify the case, the next step is to study the case. You need to check if your case meets the following criteria:

Provides insights into the subject you are studying.
Challenge the existing theories.

To write a case study, the candidate should have proper knowledge of the subject. The candidate should read the case study opinions and facts, later analyze the situation carefully. He/she should take short notes and highlight the points that are important.

Concentrate on Analysis

While analyzing, the candidate should focus on 2 to 5 fundamental problems of the case. It can include questions like Why do they exist? What are the impacts, and who’s responsible for these problems? At the start of the paragraph, the candidate should introduce the protagonists, then include the topic of the case.

Check Also: Judiciary Exam Subjects

Describe the synopsis

Drafting a summary of the case is important to completely understand the case. The candidate should describe all the characters of the story chronologically and also the problems included.

Curate the best solutions

Candidates should perform trial and error methods to find the best solutions that fit the problem. Reviewing course readings, recalling discussions, and candidates’ own experiences can help find the best solutions. Brainstorming is one of the best possible ways to find the solution.

Choose the Best solution

In the brainstorming session list out all the possible solutions and choose the best one. To choose the best, the candidate should examine the strengths and weaknesses of the answers listed. Considering strong evidence and its pros and cons can help in finding the right solution.

Read More: Judiciary Eligibility Criteria 2024

Use IRAC rule

IRAC stands for Issue, the Rule of Law, Analysis, and Conclusion. In this method, the candidate should first discover and identify issues in the case. Let’s understand each part of the rule below:

Issues will not be visible sometimes, so the candidate should look for the issue carefully. Problems vary based on the matter for example they include negligence, malpractice, abuse of power, several liabilities, amongst other subjects. One case can have several issues, so it’s better to discuss the problems separately. Before moving ahead, the candidate should confirm if he/she has spotted the issue that the model writer intended.

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The Rule of Law

The candidate should determine the rule of law that should be incorporated in the case study. For every issue discovered, the candidate should find the best rule of law. Ensure that they are relevant. There is no need to note down every rule of law while writing a case study. The candidate should only review each rule of law cautiously.

The candidate should analyze the case study to discover the possible solutions to the problem. He/she should relate the practical part with the theory part while writing a case study in the law exam. The candidate should not only suggest a solution but also present some facts to support the suggested solutions.

The candidate should ensure that they have chosen a relevant rule of law. After selecting the rule of law, they can apply it to the situations discovered. The candidate should make lawyerly arguments on behalf of the defendant and also the plaintiff. Imagining what the plaintiff would argue and what the defendant would say on their part will help analyze the case study.

The candidate should be more creative while making any arguments. Candidates should argue based on the facts and how they integrate them in one way or another. Also, the candidate can state the policy reason and why the case should turn one way and not the other. Candidates can also argue based on why one should use the model rule instead of the traditional rule.

The conclusion is the final part of writing a case study. It should be based on the reasons why the issue was raised based on the rule of law and use the judgment of relevant use case laws. While finalizing the case study, the candidate should write the final verdict of each situation. Preferably, the candidate can state that the plaintiff is likely to win for the defendant.

Read Also: How To Prepare For Judiciary Exams 2024

Frequently Asked Questions

Q). What is the full form of IRAC?

A). IRAC stands for Issue, the Rule of Law, Analysis, and Conclusion.

Q). How to choose the best solution to a problem?

A). To choose the best, the candidate should examine the strengths and weaknesses of the answers listed. Considering strong evidence and its pros and cons can help in finding the right solution.

Q). How to find the problems?

A). While analyzing, the candidate should focus on 2 to 5 fundamental problems of the case. It can include questions like Why do they exist? What are the impacts, and who's responsible for these problems?

Q). Why is in-depth analysis necessary?

A). Deep analysis of a subject ensures that you don’t miss out on any part of the subject unturned.

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What is a Master of Studies in Law? Explore the George Washington University Law School MSL

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You don’t have to be a lawyer to earn a living understanding and applying the law. Many professions require — or benefit significantly from — a thorough understanding of how the law impacts an industry or institution. The Master of Studies in Law (MSL), a graduate-level law degree designed for non-lawyers, can prepare you for a career interpreting and navigating legal situations.

You can earn an MSL 100% online from the George Washington University Law School (GW Law); you also have the option to take courses on-campus. The program offers specializations online in three areas: government procurement law, national security and cybersecurity law, and government procurement and cybersecurity law. The university’s location in the heart of Washington, D.C. enables students to benefit from access to the center of national legal and political activity — without ever having to leave their hometowns.

Gain Legal Expertise to Propel Your Career

Choose from three msl concentrations at gw law.

If you aspire to a career engaging with the law, you may be wondering whether a Master of Studies in Law is the right degree for you. How does the MSL differ from the Juris Doctor (JD), the law degree pursued by aspiring attorneys? What careers does each degree facilitate? This article explores those questions to help you decide which option better suits your career goals.

Master of Studies in Law vs. Juris Doctor: Decoding the Differences

A Master of Studies in Law is a master’s-level graduate degree in law and legal systems. A Juris Doctor is a terminal degree at the doctoral level that qualifies recipients to work in the courts as lawyers and judges. Admissions requirements, coursework, and career opportunities for the degrees differ substantially.

Applicants to GW’s MSL program must hold a bachelor’s degree and three to five years of professional experience relevant to the specialization they choose to pursue. Acceptance into a JD program requires a bachelor’s degree and an acceptable score on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) .

Coursework in the degree programs overlaps somewhat, but the JD is undoubtedly the more comprehensive and detailed of the two. GW’s MSL program requires 24 credit hours of coursework, which can be completed in as few as 12 months (for full-time students). A JD requires 80 credit hours and includes a rigorous first-year law student curriculum, with courses such as Torts, Property, and Contracts. Full-time JD students typically take three years to complete their degrees, after which they must pass their state’s bar exam.

Your professional goals will dictate which degree you choose. JD graduates are trained to practice law (after successfully passing a state or DC bar examination); they typically pursue careers as lawyers, judges and legal scholars. An MSL can be helpful in professions in such varied fields as government, business, finance, real estate, court administration, mediation, insurance, policy, and nongovernmental organizations. Practically every field intersects with the law, creating career opportunities for MSL degree holders.

What Will You Learn in MSL Programs?

Graduates of George Washington University’s Master of Studies in Law are prepared to communicate with lawyers and competently address industry compliance and regulatory issues. Students pursue the specialization most compatible with their current professional experience:

Government Procurement Law examines how procurement systems operate and the laws and regulations that govern them in the U.S. and abroad. Classwork includes anti-corruption, intellectual property and procurement reform.
National Security & Cybersecurity Law thoroughly examines legal and policy issues surrounding national security, cybersecurity, AI, big data and new technologies. Classes cover internet law, foreign access to U.S. technology, and artificial intelligence law.
Government Procurement & Cybersecurity Law prepares professionals to address the rising demand for cybersecurity legal expertise in government procurement law. Topics include cybersecurity law and technology, consumer privacy and data protection, and government procurement of intellectual property.

In all fields, the MSL degree prepares graduates to address challenges from a legal perspective, communicate with lawyers and non-lawyers alike, and assess the legal ramifications of corporate and institutional issues.

Career Pathways with a Master of Studies in Law

An MSL can be especially beneficial for people who work in highly regulated fields, such as government, healthcare, education, nonprofits, manufacturing and finance. Anyone who communicates frequently with lawyers can also benefit from an MSL. Graduates of GW’s MSL program have gone on to work for various employers, including:

Department of Defense
Department of Homeland Security
General Dynamics
General Services Administration (GSA)
Lockheed Martin
Northrop Grumman

Is an MSL the Right Fit for Your Professional Goals?

The GW Law online MSL serves non-lawyer professionals whose work requires a detailed knowledge of the law. An MSL can benefit compliance officers, consultants, government managers, intelligence community analysts, journalists, policy analysts, and procurement specialists, to name just a few.

George Washington University Law School’sMSL program provides the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to apply the law to today’s organizational legal challenges. Located in our nation’s capital with flexible options to attend from any location, GW Law’s MSL degree delivers a strong law curriculum, respected faculty experts, academic peers from across the globe and over 33,000 living alumni for networking, advice and career development.

If you are ready to explore the law and find your place within it, contact an admissions adviser to learn more about the MSL program or start your application .

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Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide

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Welcome to our preparation tips for case interviews! Whether you are just curious about case interviews or are planning to apply for consulting internships or full-time jobs, these tips and resources will help you feel more prepared and confident.

A case interview is a role playing exercise in which an employer assesses how logically and persuasively you can present a case. Rather than seeing if you get the “correct” answer, the objective is to evaluate your thought process. ( Adapted with permission from Case In Point: Complete Case Interview Preparation by Marc Cosentino).

Case interviews are very commonly used in the interview process for consulting firms and companies in similar industries. In the case interview, you will typically be given a business problem and then asked to solve it in a structured way. Learning this structure takes preparation and practice. You can learn more and practice using the resources listed below.

Why are Case Interviews Used?

Case interviews allow employers to test and evaluate the following skills:

Analytical skills and logical ability to solve problems
Structure and thought process
Ability to ask for relevant data/information
Tolerance for ambiguity and data overload
Poise and communication skills under pressure and in front of a client

How can I prepare for Case Interviews?

1.) Read Management Consulted’s “Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide (2024)”

Management Consulted is a FREE resource for Tufts students : case and consulting resources such as 500 sample cases, Case Interview Bootcamp, Market Sizing Drills, Math Drills, case videos, consulting firm directory, and more

2.) Review additional resources:

Case in Point – This book, by Marc Cosentino, is a comprehensive guide that walks you through the case interview process from beginning to end. This guide has helped many students over the years and can serve as an excellent foundation for how to approach business problems
Casequestions.com – The companion website to Marc Cosentino’s book listed above offers preparation for case interviews, along with links to top 50 consulting firms
Management Consulting Case Interviews: Cracking The Case – tips for case interviews from the other side of the table, from Argopoint, a Boston management consulting firm specializing in legal department consulting for Fortune 500 companies
Preplounge.com – Free case preparation access for to up to 6 practice interviews with peers, selected cases, and video case solutions
RocketBlocks – Features consulting preparation such as drills and coaching
Practice sample online cases on consulting firm websites such as McKinsey , BCG , Bain , Deloitte and more!

3.) Schedule a mock case interview appointment with Karen Dankers or Kathy Spillane , our advisors for the Finance, Consulting, Entrepreneurship, and Business Career Community.

4.) PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE cases out loud on your own (yes, that can feel odd) or preferably, with another person. See #2 and #3 above for resources and ideas to find partners to practice live cases

5.) Enjoy and have fun solving business problems!

Stunt Driving Case: A Mother’s Nightmare Experience of 55km over the speed limit

Introduction to Stunt Driving Laws

Stunt driving is a significant traffic offense in Ontario, and it’s essential to understand what it entails. If you’re caught driving 50 km/h over the speed limit, you’re not just speeding; you’re stunt driving according to provincial law. This charge carries severe penalties that can impact your driving privileges and much more.

A Real Case of Stunt Driving: The Impact on a Family

Recently, a mother faced a nightmare scenario when she was stopped for driving significantly over the speed limit on a quiet road in Northern Ontario. As a partner at Nextlaw, I handled her case. She was not only shocked by the stunt driving charge but also by the fact that the officer handcuffed her in front of her children, leading to a very stressful situation for the whole family.

What Does Stunt Driving Entail in Ontario?

In Ontario, stunt driving includes driving 40 km/h or more over the speed limit. When charged, the driver faces immediate consequences, such as an automatic 30-day suspension and the vehicle’s impoundment for 14 days . These measures are part of the law’s strict approach to handling what it deems dangerous driving behaviors.

The Emotional Versus Legal Realities of Stunt Driving Charges

It’s natural to feel overwhelmed by the emotions of such a distressing experience, but it’s crucial to recognize that personal feelings don’t hold weight in the legal process. In court, the focus is on the facts and the law, not the emotional distress caused by the incident, even when children are involved.

The Importance of Legal Representation in Stunt Driving Cases

This is where experienced legal counsel becomes indispensable. With Nextlaw’s expertise, we were able to guide our client through the complexities of her stunt driving charge . By understanding the court’s perspective and developing a strong legal strategy, we helped her maintain her driving privileges and mitigate the potential penalties.

Conclusion: Reach Out for Professional Legal Advice

If you’re dealing with a stunt driving charge in Ontario , it’s vital to seek professional advice. Legal experts who specialize in traffic law can provide the guidance you need. For assistance with your case, contact Nextlaw. We’re committed to helping drivers navigate the legal system and work towards a favorable outcome.

What are the penalties for Stunt Driving in Ontario?

Stunt driving in Ontario can result in immediate license suspension for 30 days, vehicle impoundment for 14 days, and severe fines. A conviction could lead to further driving prohibitions and increased insurance rates. Seeking legal counsel is crucial for understanding and potentially mitigating these penalties.

Do I need a lawyer for Ontario Stunt Driving charges?

Yes, legal representation is highly recommended for stunt driving charges in Ontario. A lawyer can help navigate the legal system, develop a defense strategy, and work towards mitigating the penalties. The complexities of traffic law make professional advice invaluable.

Jonathan practices exclusively in defending Stunt Driving charges in Ontario. He is the co-founding partner of Nextlaw and is licensed by the Law Society of Ontario.

Stunt Driving at 92km Speeds in a 50km Zone in Ontario. What Happens Now?

Can I Get the Same Result as my Friend for my Stunt Driving charge in Ontario?

Zoom & Your Legal Defense: Secrets Revealed for Stunt Driving Cases in Ontario

Officer Radar and Speed capture for Stunt Driving charges in Ontario

What Happens to Your Car Insurance After a Stunt Driving Ticket?

What Counts in Defending Against a Stunt Driving Charge

Officer Pace and Speed capture for Stunt Driving charges in Ontario

Understanding Stunt Driving Charges in Ontario: A Guide to Managing Stress and Protecting Your Mental Health

The Impact of Stunt Driving on Family Relationships

The Impact of Stunt Driving on Criminal Records

Essential Guide: Protecting Your Professional License from Stunt Driving Charges

The Impact of Stunt Driving on Travel Abroad

The Impact of Stunt Driving on Immigration Status in Ontario

The Impact of Stunt Driving Convictions on Employment

Officer Laser Devices and Speed capture for Stunt Driving charges in Ontario

Are all Stunt Driving cases treated the same?

Stunt Driving- is Video / Body Cam evidence Necessary?

Understanding the Risks of Stunt Driving in Ontario

What is a Worst Case Scenario for a Stunt Driving Charge in Ontario?

Next Law publishes these articles and videos as a service to our website visitors for general informational purposes only. These materials do not, and are not, intended to, constitute legal advice. You should not act upon any such information without seeking professional counsel.

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9 places to nosh on bagels in southern Maine

From old-school spots to foodie favorites, there's a 'hole' lot to try.

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Bread and bagels at The Works Cafe in downtown Portland. Photo by Aimsel Ponti

From New York-style boiled bagels to Montreal-inspired wood-fired ones, there’s lots of great bagels in southern Maine and several shops have the accolades to back that up.

In 2023, Bon Appetit named bagels from Rose Foods and Rover Bagel among the best in the country.

Two years before that, Food & Wine Magazine put Rover, Forage and Scratch Baking Co. on its list of best bagels in the U.S.

Whether you like yours toasted with cream cheese or as the bread for your breakfast sandwich, you can find plenty of styles and flavors from Biddeford to Brunswick.

BEACH BAGELS

The offerings at Beach Bagels include a French toast and marble bagel, and the cream cheese menu comprises spreads like strawberry, olive and honey walnut. Along with breakfast sandwiches, Beach Bagels has hearty breakfast options like omelets and pancakes. Best of all, you’re steps away from a beach stroll. Just don’t let the seagulls steal your bagel. Advertisement

WHEN: 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily WHERE: 34 Old Orchard St., Old Orchard Beach. beachbagels.yolasite.com ______________

Dutchman’s opened in 2022 as a pop-up housed at Nomad pizza in Brunswick’s Fort Andross building. It’s since become a permanent fixture there and uses the pizzeria’s wood-fired ovens to bake its bagels. The hand-shaped, honey-boiled bagels come in plain, roasted garlic, poppy and a bagel-of-the-day flavor.

WHEN: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday to Sunday WHERE: Fort Andross, 14 Maine St., Brunswick. dutchmans.me ______________

FORAGE MARKET

Making bagels at Forage Market involves a two-day aging process. The bagels are naturally leavened with wild yeast starter and baked next to a hardwood fire. There are usually five flavors available, including sesame and garlic. Breakfast sandwiches (including vegan options) are available. Forage also has a location in Lewiston. Advertisement

WHEN: 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday WHERE: 123 Washington Ave., Portland. foragemarket.com _____________

MISTER BAGEL

There are 10 or so Mister Bagel locations in Maine, including South Portland and Falmouth. It all began with the Portland location, which was the first bagel shop to open in Maine. The late Rick Hartglass started Mister Bagel in 1977, and it is still a family business. Music fans will appreciate the breakfast sandwich menu, which includes The David Bowie (bacon, egg and American cheese), the Jimmy Buffett (egg with roast beef and cheddar) and The Lady Gaga (avocado, salt and pepper, with or without egg).

WHEN: 6:30 a.m. to noon Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to noon Saturday and Sunday WHERE: 599 Forest Ave., Portland. misterbagelforestave.com ______________

At Rose Foods, the menu varies depending on the day, but there are usually six to eight flavors available. For example, should you pop in on a Friday, you’ll find a poppy and onion bialy (a cousin of the bagel that is not boiled). Rose Foods also makes a number of bagel sandwiches, including the Classic Nova with Nova lox and the Classic Whitefish. Advertisement

WHEN: 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily WHERE: 428 Forest Ave., Portland. rosefoods.me

______________

ROVER BAGEL

At Rover Bagel, you’ll find wood-fired plain, poppy, sea salt, sesame and everything bagels available most of the time, and the spread game here is strong with cream cheese options like lemon-thyme-honey cream and chili-garlic.

WHEN: 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. to noon Sunday WHERE: 10 West Point Lane Suite 10-204, Biddeford (Pepperell Mill). roverbagel.com

______________ Advertisement

SCRATCH BAKING CO.

You haven’t lived until you’ve experienced the line of devoted fans waiting for Scratch Baking Co. to open, especially on weekend mornings. Along with the popular Maine sea salt, plain and other everyday flavors, Scratch has a daily special bagel. There’s honeyed rosemary on Wednesday and jalapeno cheddar on Thursday. Scratch is also famous, at least to locals, for its P-Cheese spread. It’s a pimento cheese recipe made with cheddar, mayo, roasted red peppers and seasoning and was passed down to co-owner and head baker Allison Reid by her grandmother, Mern.

WHEN: 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday, 7 a.m. to noon Sunday WHERE: 416 Preble St., South Portland. scratchbakingco.com ___________

THE MAINE BAGEL

The Maine Bagel is a drive-thru with several breakfast and other kinds of sandwiches available. With a bagel list that features egg and bialy among the standards, the family-owned spot is the perfect place to stop on your way to Pine Point Beach. The Maine Bagel really shines with a dozen kinds of cream cheese spreads, including raisin-walnut, lox, strawberry, cranberry-nut and bacon-chive.

WHEN: 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. WHERE: 117 Route 1, Scarborough. themainebagel.com Advertisement

THE WORKS CAFE

The Works Cafe is an institution on the edge of the Portland’s Old Port. It opened in 1990 as Bagel Works before it changed its name in 2002. The original shop in this regional chain opened in Manchester, Vermont, in 1988, and there are 11 locations around New England, though just the one in Maine. Gone are the ’90s-era banana-walnut bagels and cold pizza cream cheese, but The Works Cafe is still a reliable place to grab a salt, multigrain or cinnamon raisin bagel, among others. The menu also has bowls, sandwiches and smoothies.

WHEN: 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily WHERE: 15 Temple St., Portland. workscafe.com

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IMAGES

A Quick PDF Guide with Law Case Study Tips and Examples by ryecarter9
How To Write A Case Study Business Law
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Case Law Research
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How to Write a Case Brief for Law School
Case briefs are a necessary study aid in law school that helps to encapsulate and analyze the mountainous mass of material that law students must digest. The case brief represents a final product after reading a case, rereading it, taking it apart, and putting it back together again. In addition to its function as a tool for self-instruction ...
How to Write a Case Brief: Essential Skills for Law Students
The primary purpose of writing a case brief is to condense and synthesize complex legal cases into a manageable format. It helps law students and professionals understand and recall key aspects of cases, such as facts, legal issues, and judgments, which is crucial for classroom discussions, exams, and legal practice. 2.
Effective Legal Case Briefs for Law Students · LSData
As a new law student, one of the essential skills you need to develop is the ability to write effective legal case briefs. A case brief is a concise summary of a legal case that highlights the key issues, legal principles, and holdings of the court. Writing a good case brief can help you better understand the law, prepare for class discussions ...
The Case Study Teaching Method
The Case Study Teaching Method. It is easy to get confused between the case study method and the case method, particularly as it applies to legal education. The case method in legal education was invented by Christopher Columbus Langdell, Dean of Harvard Law School from 1870 to 1895. Langdell conceived of a way to systematize and simplify legal ...
Introduction
Introduction. Every law student and practicing attorney must be able to find, read, analyze, and interpret case law. Under the common law principles of stare decisis, a court must follow the decisions in previous cases on the same legal topic. Therefore, finding cases is essential to finding out what the law is on a particular issue.
Legal Research: A Guide to Case Law
Introduction. Each branch of government produces a different type of law. Case law is the body of law developed from judicial opinions or decisions over time (whereas statutory law comes from legislative bodies and administrative law comes from executive bodies). This guide introduces beginner legal researchers to resources for finding judicial ...
PDF Introduction to Case Briefing
Case title and date. It is also wise to list the page in the casebook for easy reference. Due both to the case method of studying the law and the common law emphasis on judicial opinions, the title of an opinion (Jones v. Smith) becomes a symbol of the rule for which it stands. So, for instance, a court wanting to talk about the rule
Legal research: 3-step how-to guide
1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience. 2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material.
The Law School Case Method
The case method eschews explanation and encourages exploration. In a course that relies entirely on the casebook, you will never come across a printed list of "laws." Indeed, you will learn that in many areas of law there is no such thing as a static set of rules, but only a constantly evolving system of principles.
CaseBriefs
FREE. All content is free for all to use, as we are supported by our strategic partners who utilize Casebriefs ™ to connect to the Higher Education and Professional Markets. Access the world's largest database of Free Case Briefs for Law Students. Curated from law school case books, includes links for optimal case understanding.
reading case law quickly & effectively (law school)
at law school, reading cases and case law are key parts to studying. but it can also be super dense and time consuming so it makes life so much easier if you...
Online Courses and Casebooks
Online Courses. These online courses are for lawyers looking to do a deep dive into a particular area, and for anyone looking to learn about how law works in practice. Offered by Harvard Law School in collaboration with Harvard's Vice Provost for Advances in Learning and edX, these courses are part of our ongoing commitment to lifelong learning.
Why and How: Using the Case Study Method in the Law Classroom
While we have not yet seen a study on the efficacy of the case study method vs. the Langdell method in law schools, research from political science professor Matthew Krain suggests that case studies and problem-based activities do enhance certain types of learning over other types of pedagogy. In his investigation, Krain compared the results of ...
Case Study Resources
Harvard Education Press provides access to cases in higher education and K-12 education. Topics include administration and finance, curriculum development, external relations and public affairs, faculty, human resources, leadership, marketing, planning, student affairs, data use, and community organizing. Harvard Kennedy School Case Program.
How to Analyze Case Law: 11 Steps (with Pictures)
1. Read the case. You should read the case through at least once from beginning to end until you attempt to figure out which facts are most important or analyze the court's holding. It's difficult to correctly determine what was central to the court's reasoning until you've read it all the way through.
US Case Law, Court Opinions & Decisions :: Justia
Case law, also known as precedent or common law, is the body of prior judicial decisions that guide judges deciding issues before them. Depending on the relationship between the deciding court and the precedent, case law may be binding or merely persuasive. For example, a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is binding on ...
Case Studies
The Stanford Law School Case Studies Collection is an exciting innovation in law school teaching designed to hone students' problem-solving skills and stimulate creativity. The Collection includes situational case studies and interactive simulations (collectively referred to as "Case Materials") that place students in the roles of lawyers ...
Harvard Law School
Case Studies and Other Experiential Learning Tools from Harvard Law School. Toggle menu. 617-496-1316 Login or Sign Up; 0. ... Harvard Law School. The Case Studies. Sign In. The Case Study. a valuable tool for experiential, participant-centered learning. Learn More. Public Company Analysis.
How to Read a Law School Casebook
Chapter 2: Reading the Law School Casebook. In the first chapter, I talked about rules, and in particular, about getting used to the way that lawyers use rules as the starting place for an argument. In passing, I mentioned "cases.". I said that arguments were presented in cases, but I didn't explain what a case was.
Law School 101: Tips on How to Effectively Write Case Digests
Organize your team effectively with Todoist. Divide your digest into three parts. There are only three important parts in a case digest: the FACTS, the ISSUE, and the RULING. Upon knowing the topic you are looking for, you must be able to pinpoint these three elements in what you are reading.
How to write case law or how to write case study for getting ...
Present a case law with proper details and score well
How to Write a Legal Case Study to Build Trust
If you're new to creating legal case studies, learn below how writing a case study builds client trust, as well as tips for writing a compelling case study, including: Getting permission from your client. Choosing the right case. Making your case study easy to read. Providing easy access to your case study. Telling a compelling story.
How To Write A Case Study In Law Exam: Expert Guide
A law case study is a detailed and intensive study of a person, group, or social phenomenon. Usually, you conduct a study on a case that is solved by a judge. It investigates a problem, analyses solutions with supporting evidence. A case study helps you determine the success or failure of a case. You can use the law to solve various case scenarios.
What is a Master of Studies in Law? Explore the George Washington
A Master of Studies in Law is a master's-level graduate degree in law and legal systems. A Juris Doctor is a terminal degree at the doctoral level that qualifies recipients to work in the courts as lawyers and judges. Admissions requirements, coursework, and career opportunities for the degrees differ substantially.
Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide
Case interviews allow employers to test and evaluate the following skills: Analytical skills and logical ability to solve problems. Structure and thought process. Ability to ask for relevant data/information. Tolerance for ambiguity and data overload. Poise and communication skills under pressure and in front of a client.
Stunt Driving nightmare in Northern Ontario
A Real Case of Stunt Driving: The Impact on a Family. Recently, a mother faced a nightmare scenario when she was stopped for driving significantly over the speed limit on a quiet road in Northern Ontario. As a partner at Nextlaw, I handled her case. She was not only shocked by the stunt driving charge but also by the fact that the officer ...
Weekend Edition Sunday for May 12, 2024 : NPR
by Ayesha Rascoe. less than 1 min. Audio will be available later today. Searching for a song you heard between stories? We've retired music buttons on these pages. Learn more here. Browse archive ...
Ameylia Puspita Rosa Dyah Ayu Arintyas
The research was conducted using case studies in DKI Jakarta and DI Yogyakarta with various considerations regarding socio-economic conditions, children's characteristics, and the intensity of cases of children in conflict with the law in these two areas.This research method is descriptive qualitative.
9 places to nosh on bagels in southern Maine
Gone are the '90s-era banana-walnut bagels and cold pizza cream cheese, but The Works Cafe is still a reliable place to grab a salt, multigrain or cinnamon raisin bagel, among others. The menu ...

How to Write a Case Brief: Essential Skills for Law Students

Understanding the Importance of a Case Brief

The Beauty of Brevity:

A Lifeline for Legal Eagles:

Essential Elements of a Case Brief

Facts: The Foundation Stones

Procedural History: Tracing Legal Footsteps

The Issue & Rule: Navigating Through Complexity

Analysis & Conclusion: Drawing Lessons

Steps to Writing an Effective Case Brief

Dig Into The Facts

Note Down Procedural History

Identify The Issue At Hand

Catch That Rule of Law.

Analyze And Conclude:

Tips for Writing a Clear and Concise Case Brief

Choose Your Words Wisely

Maintain Focus on Key Points

Fine-Tune Your Formatting Skills

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Case Brief

Failing to Understand the Facts Fully

Omitting Legal Precedents

Lack of Clarity and Precision

Relying Too Heavily on Templates or Examples

Misplacing Focus

The Role of Precedent in Case Briefs

Analyzing Legal Precedence in Your Case Brief

Using Precedent to Craft Strong Arguments

Reviewing and Revising Your Case Brief

Meticulous Examination for Accuracy

Critical Evaluation for Clarity

The Power of Peer Reviews

A Continuous Process

The Impact of a Well-Written Case Brief

Improved Legal Understanding

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Writing Effective Legal Case Briefs for Law Students

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