Chapter 2: How to Brief a Case

[Erin Lain]

Comment 1: How to Brief a Case:

(Page 17-26) I CANNOT stress enough, how important the skill that is
outlined in this chapter is. When I started law school, I thought a
case brief was just taking notes. After reading this chapter you will
see that it is not. There are specific things that you need to be
pulling out of a case, and the rest, as my mom would say, is for the
birds. EVERY CASE you read should be summed up in this way:

Facts, Issue, Reasoning, Holding

You will hear several different versions of this briefing technique;
know that they are all the same. There is a brief technique called
IRAC (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion), it is the same exact thing.

Do not be a rebel, like I was, and decide that you are above case
briefing. As Nike says, Just Do It, and do it early and often. ;) Ok
enough cliché phrases. Let’s break it down.

Facts: write down the facts as clearly and in plain English as
possible. I remember one time in my first semester I got called on in
contracts class, and the professor asked for the facts. First off, I
didn’t have a nice brief to look at, I just had scribbled notes in the
margin, plus a few highlights. I started repeating some of the big
words that were used in the case, and she stopped me and asked me what
they meant. I had no clue. So she gave me a disapproving look and said
that she would be coming back to me the next day, and that I should
use a dictionary. Now this story might seem harsh, but, 1. She was
right, she wasn’t there to teach me vocab. I needed to look up words I
didn’t understand on my own, and, 2. I promise that no one else
remember that, because everyone gets “called out” at some point in
their first year.

Issue: It’s just like the book says: what question is the court trying
to answer. The issue should always be in the form of a question.

Reasoning: Sometimes this can be the hardest thing to come up with,
because rarely does the court say straight out, the reason we are
deciding this is because of x, y, and z. Remember, judges get paid a
lot of money, so they have to make it seem difficult (not that they
have an easy job ;) Do you’re best with the reasoning, but typically
this is what you hash out in class.

Holding: this is a fancy word for conclusion, or answering the issue
(question). Remember yesterday, when I said law school can be boiled
down to:

You read assigned cases, you extract from those cases the rule (you do
this both on your own, and in class), you learn how to apply that rule
to new facts, at the end of the semester you are tested on your new
found skill of applying the rules to new facts.

Basically, you can replace the word “rule” with “holding” or
“conclusion.” They all mean the same thing.
I hope you’re having an “Aha!” moment now, and that this is all
starting to jell.

Ok so let’s have you try it out. Go to the Katco v. Briney case on the
orientation page (if you have trouble accessing it, e-mail me at
erin...@drake.edu or call at 515-271-2040), and do a case brief.
Give it your best shot, and then post it so we can take a look. I will
post my example of the Katco case brief tomorrow and we can compare.

A few things:
1. Briefing the Katco v. Briney case is an assignment you will be
assigned during orientation, so if you do it now, that’s one less
thing you have to worry about!
2. Even if you don’t have the “Acing Your First Year” book that we are
following, give the Katco case a try anyway (I know some are having
problems getting a copy , we are working on it)
I look forward to seeing what you come up with!