The appropriate length of a written case brief is a function of the complexity of the case, the sophistication of the briefer, and the purposes for which the brief is made."

-- Professors Byron Warnken and Elizabeth Samuels, University of Baltimore School of Law

"A good student brief will include a summary of the pertinent facts and legal points raised in the case. It will show the nature of the litigation, who sued whom, based on what occurrences, and what happened in the lower court or courts.

The facts are often conveniently summarized at the beginning of the court's published opinion. Sometimes, the best statement of the facts will be found in a dissenting or concurring opinion. WARNING: Judges are not above being selective about the facts they emphasize. This can become of crucial importance when you try to reconcile apparently inconsistent cases, because the way a judge chooses to characterize and "edit" the facts often determines which way he or she will vote and, as a result, which rule of law will be applied.

The fact section of a good student brief will include the following elements:

• A one-sentence description of the nature of the case, to serve as an introduction.
• A statement of the relevant law, with quotation marks or underlining to draw attention to the key words or phrases that are in dispute.
• A summary of the complaint (in a civil case) or the indictment (in a criminal case) plus relevant evidence and arguments presented in court to explain who did what to whom and why the case was thought to involve illegal conduct.
• A summary of actions taken by lower courts, for example, defendant convicted; conviction upheld by appellate court; Supreme Court granted certiorari."

-- "How to Brief a Case" <http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/research/brief.html>

The issues or questions of law raised by the facts peculiar to the case are often stated explicitly by the court. Again, watch out for the occasional judge who misstates the questions raised in the lower court's opinion, by the parties on appeal, or by the nature of the case.

Constitutional cases frequently involve multiple issues, some of interest only to litigants and lawyers, others of broader and enduring significance to citizens and officials alike. Be sure you have mastered both.

With rare exceptions, the outcome of an appellate case will turn on the meaning of a provision of the Constitution, a law, or a judicial doctrine. Capture that provision or debated point in your restatement of the issue. Set it off with quotation marks or underline it. This will help you later when you try to reconcile conflicting cases.

When noting the issues, it may help to phrase them in terms of questions that can be answered with a precise "yes" or "no."

Example: The famous case of Brown v. Board of Education involved the applicability of a provision of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to a school board's practice of excluding Black pupils from certain public schools solely on account of their race. The precise wording of the Amendment is "No State shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The careful student would begin by picking out the key phrases from this Amendment and deciding which of them were really at issue in this case. Assuming that there was no doubt that the school board was acting as the State, and that Miss Brown was a "person within its jurisdiction," then the key issue would be "Does the exclusion of students from a public school solely on the basis of race amount to a denial of 'equal protection of the laws'?"

Of course, the implications of this case went far beyond the situation of Miss Brown, the Topeka school board, or even public education. They cast doubt on the continuing validity of prior decisions in which the Supreme Court had held that restriction of Black Americans to "separate but equal" facilities did not deny them "equal protection of the laws." Make note of any such implications in your statement of issues at the end of the brief, in which you set out your observations and comments.

Note : More students misread cases because they fail to see the issues in terms of the applicable law or judicial doctrine than for any other reason. There is no substitute for taking the time to frame carefully the questions, in order that they actually incorporate the key provisions of the law in terms capable of being given precise answers. It may also help to label the issues, for example, "procedural issues," "substantive issue," "legal issue," and so on. Remember, too, that the same case may be used by instructors for different purposes, so pan of the challenge of briefing is to identify those issues in the case which are of central Importance to the topic under discussion in class.

-- "How to Brief a Case" <http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/research/brief.html>

The court's rationale consists of both its [legal] reasons and its policy considerations. While the holding provides the "what," the rationale provides both the "how" and the "why." If every case that arose thereafter were exactly the same as the case being briefed, then knowing the "what" would probably be enough. However, because later cases will not be exactly "on point," or "on all fours" with the present case, it is necessary to understand the court's rationale in order to consider how the law of the case may be applied to future cases.

<http://academic.udayton.edu/aep/online/class/case16.htm#Holding(s)>

The reasoning, or rationale, is the chain of argument which led the judges in either a majority or a dissenting opinion to rule as they did. This should be outlined point by point in numbered sentences or paragraphs.

<http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/research/brief.html>