Briefing is the heart of first year law school. Briefing your cases is your assignment. Unlike undergrad, you won't be graded on your assignments. This has two big downsides. First, you have no idea if you are doing the work correctly. To get proper feedback, you need to find or start a study group. Seek out other students so that you can determine how well you are briefing your cases. The second downside to not getting grades on your briefs is that the temptation not to brief your cases is great. You have so much to do first year, briefing might seem like a big waste of time. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There are at least four practical reasons to brief all of your cases.

1. Class Preparation

   First, and of least importance, you are preparing for class.

2. Outline Preparation

   By briefing every case, you are preparing your outline. Every brief is a piece of your outline.

3. Knowledge

   Third, by briefing every case you are gaining the knowledge you'll need to do well on your exams. You are learning what your case book authors' want you to know about each area of the law.

4. Essential Skills

   Finally, briefing ensures that you are properly developing your ability to synthesize the hold of a case.

The first step in briefing, even before reading the case, is to orient yourself to the material. You do this by looking at the table of contents of your case book and reading horn books and other supplemental materials.

Looking at the table of contents of your case book seems so insignficant that it might pass you by. Don't let it. The Table of Contents is the key to the kingdom.

The horn book is another great tool to orient yourself. If you don't understand or recognize the concepts in the table of contents, immediately pick up your horn book. It isn't hard finding the material your looking for in a horn book because they usually follow your text book pretty closely.

After you've figured out where you are the subject matter, read the case.

Each case in your case books illustrates one point of law. The authors select them to amplify an important rule, or illustrate an important exception to the rule. The cases will come from disparate jurisidictions; many will be old and for the most part irrelevant now. Case book authors heavily edit each opinion: Extraneous material is discarded. Conflicting discussions by justices that confuse the point are also discarded. Your case books are heavily edited because the authors want to make absolutely sure you understand the issue at hand. As you read each opinion try to find what the authors want to tell you. It is that simple.

In sum, the raw material for your brief will start with the location of the case in the table of contents, next you will draw on the horn book, then the opinion itself, then any explanatory notes the authors may have added at the end of the case. This is a lot of information to process, especially since you are new to reading legal documents.

We are working with Silver v. Starrett. The case is found in a hypothetical case book wiþh the following table of contents:

Notice that the case is located in the Chapter called "Enfoceable Promises" and the case is under the subheading of "A. Consideration." This means that the case concerns consideration which must have a bearing on which promises are enforceable.

Now, go to your horn book and find the chapter that deals with enforceable promises. Also look for the heading "consideration." You will find these headings without difficulty. Here, we will pretend that our section on consideration is a horn book.

Next, we read the case itself.

The question "why is the case in my case book" is, in reality, the same question as, "what is the issue in the case?" The issue is, or course, the legal question the court must answer to resolve the case at hand. The statement that will resolve the question is called the "rule" of the case. The "hold" of the case is how this particular court, using the rule, answered the question.

We are already well on our way to answering the question before we even read the case. From the pretend horn book, we know that not all promises can be enforced. And we know from our case book table of contents that we are concerned with just that, Enforceable Promises. What makes a promise enforceable?

We also know from the horn book that consideration is a doctrine that the courts developed to discriminate between enforceable promises and unenfoceable promises.

We can conclude, without even reading the case, that the issue in the case (i.e. the question that the case answers) will deal with consideration. The case will either define consideration for us or expand our definition of consideration.

We know from our horn book that consideration is defined as a "bargained for exchange." Will the issue in the case concern the meaning of "bargained for exchange?" You bet it will. That is exactly why its in the case book.

What does the case say about consideration? Have you read the case? Read it now if you haven't.

The case involves a lesbian couple that is separating. The court is concerned with how we deterimine what is a "bargained for exchange." How do we know when a promise has been bargained for? What are the signs and facts we look at to deterimine when a promise has been bargained for? The court says that a change in the position of one party that promotes the bargain is a bargained for exchange.

We have successfully identified the issue and the rule, and hold of the case. The issue is, "Is a minimal yeilding that encourages a bargain a valid consideration?." The rule is, "a minimum yeilding that encourages a bargain is a valid consideration." The hold is, "A minimal change of position, such as promising to do something that you could have a legal duty to do anyway, when such yeilding encourages the bargain, is a valid consideration."

So far, we've worked on identifing the issue, the rule and the hold. These are the most important part of any brief. But there are other elements to each case. Mainly, we need to discuss the proceedure of the case, the parties, and the facts.

The proceedure is the question, "How did this case get to this court." Look at the style of the case. What does it say about the parties and the court? Is this a state court, a federal court, a court of origination or an appeals court? Who is the plaintiff and which party is the defendant?

The facts of the case are the bare minimum legally significant facts. This is a pretty subjective determination. Here, I would say the facts are: 1) a non-married couple broke up; 2)one party promised to move out quickly in exchange for money; 3)the other party agreed and then stopped paying; 4)the party that moved out brought suit.

Now all we need to do is summurize our findings in a nice short document.

This analysis is question begging. That is, I already know how to brief a case and when I am reading a case, I already know what I am looking for before I start. It is easy for me to keep the questions coming until I get to the root issue. I keep asking why? why? why? unitl I know that I understand what the issue is. How can you transmit this wisdom? I can't but the knowledge found in the horn book, table of contents, and other supplemental material will provide you with the parameters for your search. These tools provide you with the "big picture." Your cases fill in the small details.