how to write a legal case study

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

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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, frequently asked questions, recent posts.

How to Write a Case Brief for Law School

General steps and specific guidance for writing case briefs for law school, let's start at the beginning. what is a case brief.

When you study law, it's important to learn how to summarize legal cases. This is called "briefing" a case. By doing this, you can better understand how courts use legal principles to make decisions. Here are the steps to follow when briefing a case:

General steps to briefing a law school case

• Read the case carefully
• Identify the people involved
• Summarize the facts of the case
• Identify the legal issue
• Explain the court's decision on the legal issue
• Analyze the court's reasoning
• Summarize your findings

Typical case brief structure acronyms

There's a method called "IRAC" that some people use to structure their briefs. It stands for Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. This can help you break down complex cases into smaller parts and better understand the law.

LSD uses a different method called "ICRA." This stands for Issue, Conclusion, Rule, and Analysis. It's a good way to prepare for assigned reading or studying for class. It helps you understand the main issues and outcomes of the case.

Now for some more detail!!

Think about how to write a case brief for law school with these simple steps.

Mastering the art of case briefing is essential for every law student. A case brief is a concise summary of a legal case that outlines the key facts, legal issues, holding, and reasoning of the court's decision. It serves as a valuable tool to understand legal principles and how courts interpret them. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to write a case brief for law school:

Step 1: Carefully read the case

The first step in writing a case brief is to read the case carefully. Understand the context, facts, and procedural history of the case. Identify the key legal issues raised in the case.

Step 2: Identify the parties involved

In every legal case, there are parties involved, such as the plaintiff, defendant, appellant, or respondent. Identify these parties to understand the context of the legal dispute. Note their roles and positions in the case.

Step 3: Summarize the facts

After identifying the parties, summarize the relevant facts of the case. Be concise, accurate, and complete. Identify the relevant facts that influenced the court's decision. Note any important details or events relevant to the legal dispute.

Step 4: Identify the legal issue

The legal issue is the question or problem at the heart of the case. Identify the legal issue and how it relates to the facts of the case. Be specific when identifying the legal issue. Consider the arguments of both sides regarding the legal issue.

Step 5: Discuss the court's holding

The holding is the court's decision on the legal issue presented in the case. Identify the holding and explain how it relates to the legal issue. Discuss why the court ruled the way it did and how the ruling will affect future cases. Note any relevant legal precedent the court relied on when making its decision.

Step 6: Analyze the court's reasoning

The reasoning is the rationale or justification the court used to support its decision. Analyze the court's reasoning and note any legal principles or policy considerations the court considered when making its decision. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of the court's reasoning.

Step 7: Conclude your brief

In your conclusion, summarize the key points of your brief. Offer your opinion on the case and its implications. Discuss any issues you found interesting or problematic in the case. Relate the case to other cases you have studied in your class.

In conclusion, mastering the skill of case briefing is crucial for law students. It is a valuable tool for understanding legal principles and how courts interpret them. By following the steps outlined above, you can effectively brief a case and gain a deeper understanding of the legal issues presented. Remember to read the case carefully, identify the parties involved, summarize the facts, identify the legal issue, discuss the court's holding, analyze the court's reasoning, and conclude your brief. With practice, you will become proficient in briefing cases, and this skill will serve you well throughout your legal career.

More About the ICRA and IRAC Structure of a Case Brief

Case brief irac.

The IRAC process is a common method used in case briefs by law students and legal professionals. It stands for Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion . Here is a brief description of each component of the IRAC process:

Issue: The first step in the IRAC process is to identify the legal issue or question that the court is addressing. This can typically be found in the question presented or the holding of the case.

Rule: The next step is to identify the relevant legal rule or principle that applies to the issue. This rule could come from a statute, case law, or other legal authority.

Application: In this step, the legal rule is applied to the specific facts of the case. The key here is to explain how the rule applies to the facts and why it supports one side or the other.

Conclusion: The final step in the IRAC process is to draw a conclusion or outcome based on the application of the rule to the facts. This conclusion should be concise and clear, and should ideally answer the legal question or issue identified in step one.

The IRAC process is an effective way to organize a case brief and ensure that all relevant legal issues are addressed. It helps to break down complex legal issues into more manageable parts and provides a framework for analysis and discussion. By following this process, law students can develop their analytical skills and gain a better understanding of the law.

How does LSD structure case briefs? The ICRA+ model.

LSD uses a slightly different structure to brief cases than IRAC. Instead, we use ICRA (Issue, Conclusion, Rule, Analysis). The reason we use a different approach is because of the purpose of our briefs vs the purpose of a brief you create when doing assigned reading. IRAC is a great way to brief a case as a student. It helps structure your thoughts as you are digesting the case and builds analytical thinking skills that are key to being a lawyer. However, we think ICRA is a better way to digest a full case before doing assigned reading (or to be honest when cramming before class).

Then what is ICRA+?

Issue: State the issue(s) of the case. This makes sure you know what you are looking for when you are reading the case and gives you an initial sense of how it relates to what you have or will learn in class.

Conclusion: What was the final outcome of the case? This is the answer to the issue(s). With this you know what decision the court is driving towards as you are reading. Plus, if you just read the issue and conclusion you should be able to answer simple cold calls. You might not be ready for the tough ones, but you should be able to avoid embarrassment!

Rule: Lists the applicable rule(s) of law that the court identifies. This section gives you a sense of what rule is being applied (or deliberately not applied) in the case.

Analysis/Application: Abbreviated discussion of how the facts of the case are related to the relevant laws. In other words, summarize the court’s analysis. This is where you start to get into a little more detail about the case.

With our ICRA you should be able to make it through class. But wait, there’s more. LSD Briefs also include a tl;dr, facts, holding, and a deep dive.

Tl;dr: "Too Long Didn't Read" This is a one sentence take away at the top of all of our briefs. This is a great tool for knowing what to look for when starting your reading. AND if you cant do any reading for class you can at least shout out the tl;dr if you get cold called.

Facts: A list of relevant facts and relevant procedural history/posture.

Holding: A summary of the court’s holding in the case.

Deep dive: The LSD deep dive is a one-of-a-kind tool for law school students. The Deep Dive lets you read the case at the level you want. You can quickly find the portion of the case that is most important for your class. The deep dive lets you read a quick summary of the case and click on any text to get more detail, this continues until you get to the full case text.

Related Articles

• Preparing for Class
• Case Brief Generator
• Writing an Effective Case Brief for Students

I am the half of LSD that didn't take the LSAT, or go to law school (Sorry about that). But I did go to MIT business school while surrounded by law students and lawyers, so I am somewhat qualified to talk about the intricacies of law school apps and finances.

Windsor (the dog) didn't write this but he WAS a Resident Tutor and career advisor at Harvard College with me, so deserves some credit.

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New Student Resource Guide: Outlining and Case Briefing

• Using the Law Library
• Outlining and Case Briefing
• Taking Exams

Briefing Cases

What is a brief?

A brief is a written summary of the case.

How to prepare a brief

To prepare one, you must distill the case's most important parts and restate them in your own words. The effort will provide a variety of important benefits.

Read the case carefully and thoroughly to describe the case accurately. Describing the case in your own words forces you to determine exactly what the courts said, which concepts and facts were essential to its decision, and the proper legal terminology and procedures.

Steps to briefing a case

1. Select a useful case brief format.

There are many different ways to brief a case. You should use the format that is most useful for your class and exam preparations. Regardless of form, every brief should include the following information in steps 2-9.

2. Use the right caption when naming the brief.

A brief should begin with the case name, the court that decided it, the year it was decided, and the page on which it appears in the casebook.

3. Identify the case facts.

Next, state the facts of the case. This section is necessary because legal principles are defined by the situations in which they arise. Include in your brief only those facts that are legally relevant. A fact is legally relevant if it had an impact on the case's outcome. For example, in a personal injury action arising from a car accident, the color of the parties' cars seldom would be relevant to the case's outcome. Similarly, if the plaintiff and defendant presented different versions of the facts, you should describe those differences only if they are relevant to the court's consideration of the case. Because you will not know which facts are legally relevant until you have read and deciphered the entire case, do not try to brief a case while reading it for the first time.

4. Outline the procedural history.

With the statement of facts, you have taken the case to the point at which the plaintiff filed suit. The next section of the brief, the procedural history, begins at that point and ends with the case's appearance in the court that wrote the opinion you are reading. For a trial court opinion, identify the type of legal action the plaintiff brought. For an appellate court opinion, also describe how the trial court and, if applicable, the lower appellate court decided the case and why.

5. State the issues in question.

You are now ready to describe the opinion you are briefing. In this section of the brief, state the factual and legal questions that the court had to decide. To analyze a case properly, you must break it down to its component parts.

6. State the holding in your words.

In this section, separately answer each question in the issues section. For quick reference, first state the answer in a word or two, such as "yes" or "no." Then in a sentence or two, state the legal principle on which the court relied to reach that answer (the "holding").

7. Describe the court's rationale for each holding.

You now should describe the court's rationale for each holding. This section of the case brief may be the most important, because you must understand the court's reasoning to analyze it and to apply it to other fact situations, such as those on the exam. Starting with the first issue, describe each link in the court's chain of reasoning.

8. Explain the final disposition.

Describe the final disposition of the case. Did the court decide in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant? What remedy, if any, did the court grant? If it is an appellate court opinion, did the court affirm the lower court's decision, reverse it in whole or in part, or remand the case for additional proceedings?

9. Include other opinions.

Concurring and dissenting opinions are included in a casebook when they present an interesting alternative analysis of the case. Therefore, you should describe the analysis in your case brief. It will help you see the case in a different light.

An excerpt from Burkhart, A. M., & Stein, R. A. (2008).  How to Study Law and Take Law Exams in a Nutshell . St. Paul, Minn: West Pub. Co.

Introduction

Briefing cases and outlining your courses are important skills that will help you as you prepare for classes and study for law school exams.  This page offers some tips and tricks for doing both.

Begin an outline as soon as you have finished a chapter of the casebook, and supplement the outline as you finish each additional chapter. A chapter ending is a good time to outline because the materials in a chapter normally all relate to the same subject and provide a natural organizational unit. by outlining at the end of each chapter, you also will stagger the taks of outlining among your courses; normally, you will finish chapters on different days in different courses. You also will spread the work of outlining over the entire term, rather than trying to prepare complete outlines for each course in teh days immediately before the exams. 

To begin outlining, review your notes and case briefs for the chapter to identify its main topics. The casebook's table of contents can help you in this process. For each topic, gather the following information: 

1. Definitions of any terms of art; 

2. Relevant rules of law, including a description of each element that must be satisfied for the rule to apply and any differences among the jurisdictions; 

3. Exceptions to the rule;

4. Available remedies; 

5. Underlying policy considerations; 

6. Any important historical background; and

7. Any important reform proposals. 

There is not one proper outline format. The best format depends on the course materials and on the organization that is most helpful to you. To keep the outline to a usable length, avoid including tangential matierals no matter how interesting they are. Despite the need for consiseness, however, include an example of how a rule applies if the rule is particularly complex or abstract. An example can make the rule more understandable and memorable. 

Outlining will be slow going at first. Just as with case briefing, however, you will become more proficient. As your outlining skills improve and as you cover more matieral in each course, review the earlier portions of the outline to correct and to supplement them. 

An excerpt from Burkhart, A. M., & Stein, R. A. (2008).  Law school success in a nutshell: A guide to studying law and taking law school exams . St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West. 

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Writing a Case Note: The Ultimate Guide

How to Write a First-Class Case Note

Being able to write case-notes is crucial to your success studying law. As well as being a common form of assignment, they make very handy revision aids. Common law cases are often long-winded and dense, and sometimes it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees – let along remember the key parts! This post will provide you the ultimate guide to writing first-class case summaries using the FIRODA Case-Note Method.

The FIRODA Method

The FIRODA Method is an excellent way of structuring your case notes so that you summarise and remember all the key elements. Start by noting down the name of the case and the court which decided it. We’ll use Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner as an example.

Give a brief overview of the key facts of the case. The key facts are those which are relevant to the outcome of the case – the facts which the judge actually took into account when reaching their legal conclusions. If a fact is not relevant to the outcome, you probably do not need to include it. In some cases there might be a relevant dispute over what the facts were: note this down too.

Any given case will involve deciding one or more points of law, or applying one or more legal principles to a particular set of facts. Work out what the court was actually being asked to do in the case, and summarise it.

For each issue you have identified, read the majority judgments of the court to determine the ratio decidendi . The ratio decidendi is the application of the legal rule which leads the court to reach the case’s outcome. It is distinguished from obiter dicta , which is everything else in the judgment.

Not sure whether a statement is the ratio decidendi or obiter dicta ? There is no clear cut method for deciding, unfortunately, but here is a useful guide. Ask yourself: if the judge had not made this finding of fact, or used this particular legal principle, would they have reached the particular conclusion they did? If it would make no difference to the outcome, then you are probably looking at obiter dicta. Otherwise, it is probably ratio decidendi .

For example, it is common for judges to decide a case based on a particular legal principle or finding of fact, but then say ‘if I am wrong’ or ‘I would reach the same conclusion if…’ and then consider how the case would be decided if the facts or legal principles were different. The first part of such a judgment is usually the ratio decidendi , and everything afterwards is usually obiter .

In some cases, there may not be a unified ratio decidendi . For example, in Re Baden (No 2) [1972] EWCA Civ 10, the three judges all agreed on what the outcome of the case should be. However, they all reached their conclusions using completely different reasoning. If you are writing a note on a case where the majority judges disagree, explain the ratio decidendi of each judge’s decision. Compare and contrast them.

O: Obiter Dicta

While most of the obiter dicta in a case can safely be forgotten by the average law student, sometimes judges say interesting things obiter that can influence how future cases are decided. For example, the judge might:

• Speculate on how the law might apply to a novel set of facts;
• Discuss how future courts ought to decide related areas of law;
• Disapprove of a past case, but not overrule it;
• Approve of a past case.

If you think the judge has said anything in the obiter dicta which gives you insight into the law beyond the case, note it down in this section.

In some cases, a judge dissents from the majority of the court and disagrees with the outcome. Often these dissents are ignored by the legal community, but sometimes they become a powerful argument that the case was wrongly decided. If you are reading a case with a dissenting judge, note down the points on which they disagree with the majority, and why. Consider whose argument you think is stronger.

A: Assessment

Finally, assess and evaluate the decision. It may help you to read academic commentary on the case in law journals or case-books. You should be looking to answer questions such as:

• How does it fit with previous and subsequently decided cases in the same area?
• What policy, principle and social factors might have influenced how the judges decided the case?
• Do you agree with how the law was decided and applied to the facts? If not, how would you have decided this case?

With that, you will have a solid case-note. This will not only help you get top marks in your assignments, but will also make it much easier to remember principles of law for your exams. Got any personal tips for writing case notes? Leave us a message in the comments!

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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 130,819 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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://www.gareth-evans.com/how-to-read-understand-and-summarise-legal-cases/
• ↑ http://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/lawschool/pre-law/reading-a-casebook.page
• ↑ https://www.monash.edu/learnhq/write-like-a-pro/annotated-assessment-samples/law/law-case-note
• ↑ https://utas.libguides.com/legal_research/caselaw
• ↑ http://www.cengage.com/resource_uploads/downloads/0324654553_91282.pdf
• ↑ https://lawschool.westlaw.com/marketing/display/SG/3
• ↑ http://www.csun.edu/~kkd61657/brief.pdf

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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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Crime, Justice, and the American Legal System: Case Study Preparation

Throughout the term students prepared three case studies in order to engage with information on the american legal system..

Up to two of the case studies could be replaced by multimedia projects.  The case studies were discussed in lectures and sections, and the multimedia projects are presented in the final lecture, allowing for students to regularly showcase their hard work. For both projects, students had to complete the course reading in order to propose a topic that engaged course scholarship and themes. 

There is a detailed handout describing how to create case studies.  In short, a case study examines a real life situation and includes three components:  (1) Part A--a detailed factual background section that raises (but does not resolve) several significant questions/dilemmas in the case; (2) Part B--a follow up factual section explaining what subsequently occurred and how the questions/dilemmas were actually addressed; and (3) Part C--a final analytical section contextualizing the case study in light of course themes and theories, while substantively engaging and citing course readings.  Multimedia projects are unstructured and open ended, but must be approved in advance by the course staff.  Examples are shown to students early in the term.

Prior to the first submission deadline, the instructor presented an earlier student case study in lecture so students understood the structure and pedagogical objectives of the case studies.  Part A was distributed to students to read in class (much as is done at the Business School, for example).  After reading Part A, students debated the dilemma presented and how they feel the protagonist should proceed.  Part B is then distributed in class and it describes what decision(s) the protagonist actually made and the ramifications of that/those decisions.  Students then discuss and debate what occurred, and how it connects to course theories and themes.  With respect to multimedia projects, many are video documentaries and are shown in class followed by a structured discussion by the course instructor.

With respect to case studies, students are given a word processing template so that all output is uniform (similar to case studies produced by the business, law and government professional schools).  Students often prepare the case studies with a combination of text, photos and graphs/charts.  Prior examples were both discussed in class and made available online for students to use as a reference.  For multimedia projects, most students created videos that incorporated person-to-person interviews with correctional officials, police officers, business owners, fellow students, community organizers, public defenders, etc--and these interviews were edited along with voice-overs and other video clips and still images to create compelling presentations.  Other students presented their multimedia presentations live, some utilizing powerpoints and even one student performing in class an anti-death penalty song (that she wrote) in the form of a traditional protest folk ballad.  Other students have created fictitious television programs and even a children's book harnessing course themes.  All multimedia projects must be accompanied by a short essay contextualizing the project, citing course scholarship and themes.

For case studies, students researched unique topics (students must write on different topics from one another), some of which are publicly known and others that are known only from the student's own personal experience.  Students must not only find compelling cases to analyze, but they must engage in the pedagogical exercise of finding a strong "dilemma" or "decision point" in the story that could be debatable in class.  This is more difficult than it appears, as the break between Part A and Part B cannot simply be a break in the action; the break must present a compelling and controversial dilemma that is likely to create an excellent and robust class discussion.  The best case studies are chosen by the instructor and then distributed in class (anonymously), and discussed--both in terms of the criminological questions raised, but also the pedagogical strength of the case study's construction.  With respect to multimedia projects, at least 5 minutes of every project is presented in class (either "live" by the student or through video), and then the instructor provides constructive feedback for the students.  In past years students have also provided constructive feedback both in class and on iSite (online).

The goal of the case studies is for students to (1) research a relevant, real life case that illustrates course themes and theories; (2) analyze a real life fact scenario not only for course themes, but also for classroom pedagogical potential in terms of the dilemma and issues presented for discussion/debate; and (3) to analyze (in Part C of the case study) the case selected by substantively engaging course scholarship, forcing students to move beyond merely descriptive assignments and to develop their own opinions and views, contextualized by course themes and readings.  For the multimedia projects, students are encouraged to explore their passions and think "outside the box" in exploring a criminological topic in a media format that speaks to them.  While most students use video format for interviewing key stakeholders, others have created songs, children's books, advocacy pieces, fictitious television episodes, fictitious magazines/tabloid front pages, and even music videos.  The over-arching goal of these projects is to illustrate how the course themes can be intensely (and engagingly) relevant to students--and our society.

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