Lawstu Case Brief

When to use

Reach for this when you have an assigned opinion to read and want a brief you actually understand — one you could reconstruct under a cold call. This skill coaches you through briefing your own case; it asks the questions a good study partner would.

Not for: having a brief written for you to submit or recite as your own preparation. This guides, it never ghostwrites — you supply the reading, it pressure-tests your grasp. Not for briefing a real matter for a client (that is practice, not study), and not for outlining a whole course (see lawstu-outline-builder).

Method

1. Read first, brief second. Read the full opinion before touching structure. Note where you got lost — that is where the exam risk lives.
2. Pin the procedural posture. Who sued whom, what was decided below, and what exactly is on appeal. Decision point: if you cannot name the standard of review, re-read.
3. State the issue as a question joining the disputed law to the material facts ("Does X apply when Y?"), not a topic label.
4. Separate holding from dicta. The holding answers the issue and binds; everything else is persuasion. Mark which is which.
5. Trace the reasoning. Reconstruct the court's steps — rule, application, policy — in your own words. Add the dissent's competing rule.
6. Extract the rule in one transferable sentence you could apply to a new hypo.

Example

Issue draft: "Was there a contract?" → tightened to "Does an advertisement constitute an offer when it specifies quantity and a mode of acceptance?" The holding then answers that question; the store-restocking language becomes dicta you flag, not memorize.

Pitfalls

• Copying headnotes or a commercial brief — you learn nothing and the professor's follow-up exposes it.
• Confusing dicta for holding, then over-applying it on the exam.
• Fact-dumping; keep only outcome-determinative facts.
• Skipping the dissent, which is often the next exam's majority.

Output format

Case | Court | Year
Posture: below → on review (standard of review)
Facts: [material only]
Issue: [does X apply when Y?]
Holding: [answer + who wins]
Reasoning: [rule → application → policy]
Dissent: [competing rule]
Rule extracted: [one transferable sentence]
Open question for class:

Reference

• Case-brief format: Facts → Procedural Posture → Issue → Holding → Reasoning → Dissent → Rule. Keep to one page.
• IRAC linkage: the extracted Rule feeds directly into IRAC practice (lawstu-irac-practice).
• Bar framing: briefs build the rule statements that become your MBE/essay rule bank later (lawstu-bar-prep-questions).