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From the beginning of law school, most of your doctrinal courses have casebooks. That means you will be reading cases in order to learn the law of torts or contracts or whatever the subject of the course is. Especially in the beginning of your career as a law student it may be difficult to determine which details in each case are important, to remember them, and keep them in mind while reading the next case. That is why most professors recommend that you brief cases as you read them. The form your brief will take depends in part upon you and what you find works for you, but it should include certain things, such as the name of the case, the date, the court, some brief facts, the issue before the court, the decision or holding and the reasoning. We cannot tell you whether you should brief the cases in the book margin or on separate pieces or paper or on note cards. Nor can we dictate precisely what categories your brief should have or how long your notes in each section of it should be. However, there are a number of useful books on this topic with suggestions of different but similar formats for case briefs. For example, see Carolyn J. Nygren, Starting Off Right in Law School 72-89 (1997). Each student will determine after trial and error which format works best for him or her after reading a number of cases, observing and participating in class discussions, and balancing the time available for study. Cathy Claser, et. al., The Lawyer's Craft 54-59 (2002) Richard K. Newmann Jr., Legal Reasoning & Legal Writing 43-50 (5th ed. 2005) Carolyn J. Nygren, Starting Off Right in Law School 72-89 (1997) Ruth Ann McKinney, Reading Like a Lawyer (2005) Michael Hunter Schwartz, Expert Learning for Law Students (2005) Dennis J. Tonsing, 1000 Days to the Bar--But the Practice of Law Begins Now (2003) |
