(g) Party’s Arguments (each party’s opposing argument concerning the ultimate issue) (f) Dissent (if a valuable dissenting opinion exits, the dissent’s opinion) (e) Dicta (commentary about the decision that was not the basis for the decision) At a minimum, however, make sure you include the four elements listed above.Įlements that you may want to consider including in addition to the four basic elements are: On the other hand, if you find that having more elements makes your brief cumbersome and hard to use, cut back on the number of elements. To the extent that more elements will help with organization and use of the brief, include them. Whatever elements you decide to include, however, remember that the brief is a tool intended for personal use. For example, a case that has a long and important section expounding dicta might call for a separate section in your brief labeled: Dicta. Depending on the case, the inclusion of additional elements may be useful. If you include nothing but these four elements, you should have everything you need in order to recall effectively the information from the case during class or several months later when studying for exams.īecause briefs are made for yourself, you may want to include other elements that expand the four elements listed above. (a) Facts (name of the case and its parties, what happened factually and procedurally, and the judgment) While opinions may vary, four elements that are essential to any useful brief are the following: Most likely, upon entering law school, this will happen with one or more of your instructors. What are the elements of a brief? Different people will tell you to include different things in your brief. You are the person that the brief will serve! Keep this in mind when deciding what elements to include as part of your brief and when deciding what information to include under those elements. The judges certainly don’t care if you brief, so long as you competently practice the law.
As a practicing lawyer, your client doesn’t care if you brief, so long as you win the case. Who will read your brief? Most professors will espouse the value of briefing but will never ask to see that you have, in fact, briefed. In addition to its function as a tool for self-instruction and referencing, the case brief also provides a valuable “cheat sheet” for class participation. The case brief represents a final product after reading a case, rereading it, taking it apart, and putting it back together again. Case briefs are a necessary study aid in law school that helps to encapsulate and analyze the mountainous mass of material that law students must digest.
This section will describe the parts of a brief in order to give you an idea about what a brief is, what is helpful to include in a brief, and what purpose it serves.
The previous section described the parts of a case in order to make it easier to read and identify the pertinent information that you will use to create your briefs.
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