{"id":18486,"date":"2012-09-14T15:29:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T20:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=18486"},"modified":"2012-09-14T15:33:52","modified_gmt":"2012-09-14T20:33:52","slug":"reading-and-briefing-cases-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/09\/reading-and-briefing-cases-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading and Briefing Cases Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Reading and briefing cases is an important part of the learning process in law school, as discussed in Part 1<\/a> of this blog series. In this blog, various Marquette legal writing faculty discuss some of their favorite tips for effective reading and briefing.<\/p>\n

Professor Rebecca Blemberg<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you have finished reading a case, write down the question or questions the court answered. Then fill in the blanks in this sentence: The court held _______________ because ________________. Even if you\u2019re not entirely sure what the court\u2019s reasoning was, make an educated guess. Then consider the following. Was the court explicit in its reasoning? If so, mark or highlight the explicit rationale for the holding. Is the reasoning implicit? If so, mark or highlight the places where you find the court hinting at its rationale. Are you making an educated guess or \u201creading between the lines\u201d to find the court\u2019s reasoning? If so, make a list of a few reasons for your educated guess. The reasons can be related to the facts of the case, public policy, language choices by the court, the court\u2019s use of authority, etc.<\/p>\n

Look up every unfamiliar word you encounter in a case, especially legal terms. Read with access to a law dictionary. Eventually, you will look up terms far less often.<\/p>\n

Professor Jacob Carpenter<\/strong><\/p>\n

One piece of advice I would consider is to read a case at least twice, briefing it only after you\u2019ve fully read it at least once. This may not be as necessary for upper-level students, but for 1Ls, I think it is important. Otherwise, if a person briefs a case as she first reads it, the brief often ends up including extraneous facts and dicta that aren\u2019t helpful to the brief. Once the reader finishes reading the case, the reader often has to go back and cross out chunks of information initially included in the brief. And, the brief often ends up being disorganized. This may be less of a problem now that most students brief cases with their laptops instead of by hand. But, I think it is still helpful.<\/p>\n

Also, waiting to brief the case until you\u2019ve already read it allows you to focus more on understanding the case itself during the first read, and then during the second read you can focus on getting the crucial information down into your brief in an organized, concise way. I also think it helps you remember the case better when called on in class or when revisiting the case as you prepare outlines later in the semester.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Professor Melissa Greipp<\/strong><\/p>\n

As noted in Ruth Ann McKinney\u2019s Reading Like a Lawyer: Time-Saving Strategies for Reading Law Like an Expert<\/em>, when you read, be an active reader.\u00a0 One way to\u00a0be an active reader is\u00a0to question the court\u2019s holding and rationale. Would you rule the same way if you were the judge? Why or why not? Not all cases are put into a casebook because they represent \u201cgood\u201d law. Some cases are there to show bad examples of the law, or at least how the law has evolved over time.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you\u2019ll see different \u201cmajority\u201d or \u201cminority\u201d rules expressed in the selected cases. Think critically about the rules and why they work or don\u2019t work. Did the court effectively explain their rationale? What other policy implications can you think of supporting the rule?<\/p>\n

The more you can think actively by reading, the more engaged your brain will be, and your reading comprehension will increase.<\/p>\n

Professor Alison Julien<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keep your purpose in mind as you read and brief cases. Are you briefing a case from one of your casebooks to prepare for a class? If so, you\u2019re likely reading a case that has already been edited to focus on one particular point, and that point will be the focus of the class discussion.<\/p>\n

If you are reading an unedited case, however, and your purpose is to answer a client\u2019s question, you may read differently. An unedited case may address multiple points of law, and not all of those points may be relevant to your analysis. You need to focus on the parts of the case relevant to the client\u2019s issue. Don\u2019t waste time preparing a detailed brief about parts of the case that were relevant to the parties before the court but have no bearing on your client\u2019s case. For example, my LAWR students are working on a memo about whether a doctor can prove that he was incompetent to contract under a standard the New York courts refer to as the \u201cmotivational test.\u201d The cases they are reading do address that standard, but they also address a number of other issues. The challenge for students is to read carefully through the cases to pick out the rules, facts, reasoning, and holdings relevant to the motivational test. They need not waste time carefully briefing other issues raised in the cases, issues like the jurisdiction of the New York Surrogates\u2019 Court, the elements of a constructive trust, or even the elements of the other test for incompetence.<\/p>\n

Professor Lisa Mazzie<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would reiterate Prof. Blemberg\u2019s suggestion to read with access to a legal dictionary. It\u2019s far easier to skip over a word or to intuit its meaning from context, but this is a new language students must master and the best way to do that is to actually look up the exact definition of the word. And as Prof. Blemberg says, over time you have to look up fewer and fewer words.<\/p>\n

When you read a case, it\u2019s important to put the case into context. So spend a little time with the caption. Where did the case originate? When was it decided? What was happening in the world at that time? An award of damages of $1,000 may not seem like much today, but it was in, say, 1912.<\/p>\n

I would also say that when briefing cases it is essential that each student do his or her own brief. It\u2019s tempting to borrow a case brief from a friend or use one of the commercial case briefs, but that is a mistake. The real learning and understanding of a case is in your own working through it in order to brief it. Using a friend\u2019s or a commercially produced brief saves you the time of having to do your own, but also deprives you of the opportunity to better understand the case yourself. Over time, this skill, too, becomes easier and takes less time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading and briefing cases is an important part of the learning process in law school, as discussed in Part 1 of this blog series. In this blog, various Marquette legal writing faculty discuss some of their favorite tips for effective reading and briefing. Professor Rebecca Blemberg When you have finished reading a case, write down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-writing","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}