Case Briefing

Briefing is a part of your effective reading plan and case briefs are indispensable to student success in a casebook course. Case briefs (1) facilitate active learning because they require you to process the information in your own mind and write a summary of the case in your own words, (2) help you follow the class discussion and test your reading of the case, (3) assist you in understanding rules, policy, and legal reasoning, (4) present various factual situations that bring a particular doctrine into issue, and (5) are useful in making your course outlines.

There are many different ways to compose case briefs, so develop a basic structure that works for you. You may need to modify your style to match the requirements or preferences of each of your professors. The next pages include the main components you might want to include in your briefs.