Confusion often arises over the term legal brief.

There are at least two different senses in which the term is used.

How To Brief a Case

Appellate brief An appellate brief is a written legal argument presented to an appellate court. Its purpose is to persuade the higher court to uphold or reverse the trial courts decision. Briefs of this kind are therefore geared to presenting the issues involved in the case from the perspective of one side only. Appellate briefs from both sides can be very valuable to anyone assessing the legal issues raised in a case. Unfortunately, they are rarely published. The U.S. Supreme Court is the only court for which briefs are regularly available in published form. The Landmark Briefs series (REF. LAW KF 101.9 .K8) includes the full texts of briefs relating to a very few of the many cases heard by this court. In addition, summaries of the briefs filed on behalf of the plaintiff or defendant for all cases reported are included in the U.S. Supreme Court Reports. Lawyers Ed., 2nd. series (REF. LAW KF 101 .A42). Student brief A student brief is a short summary and analysis of the case prepared for use in classroom discussion. It is a set of notes, presented in a systematic way, in order to sort out the parties, identify the issues, ascertain what was decided, and analyze the reasoning behind decisions made by the courts. Although student briefs always include the same items of information, the form in which these items are set out can vary. Before committing yourself to a particular form for briefing cases, check with your instructor to ensure that the form you have chosen is acceptable. THE PARTIES AND HOW TO KEEP TRACK OF THEM Beginning students often have difficulty identifying relationships between the parties involved in court cases. The following definitions may help: Plaintiffs sue defendants in civil suits in trial courts. The government (state or federal) prosecutes defendants in criminal cases in trial courts. The losing party in a criminal prosecution or a civil action may ask a higher (appellate) court to review the case on the ground that the trial court judge made a mistake. If the law gives the loser the right to a higher court review, his or her lawyers will appeal. If the loser does not have this right, his or her lawyers may ask the court for a writ of certiorari. Under this procedure, the appellate court is being asked to exercise its lawful discretion in granting the cases a hearing for review. For example, a defendant convicted in a federal district court has the right to appeal this decision in the Court of Appeals of the circuit and this court cannot refuse to hear it. The party losing in this appellate court can request that the case be reviewed by the Supreme Court, but, unless certain special circumstances apply, has no right to a hearing. These two procedures, appeals and petitions for certiorari, are sometimes loosely grouped together as appeals. However, there is, as shown, a difference between them, and you should know it. A person who seeks a writ of certiorari, that is, a ruling by a higher court that it hear the case, is known as a petitioner. The person who must respond to the petition, that is, the winner in the lower court, is called the respondent. A person who files a formal appeal demanding appellate review as a matter of right is known as the appellant. His or her opponent is the appellee. The name of the party initiating the action in court, at any level on the judicial ladder, always appears first in the legal papers. For example, Arlo Tatum and others sued in Federal District Court for an injunction against Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and others to stop the Army from spying on them. Tatum and his friends became plaintiffs and the case was then known as Tatum v. Laird. The Tatum group lost in the District Court and appealed to the Court of Appeals, where they were referred to as the appellants, and the defendants became the appellees. Thus the case was still known at Tatum v. Laird. When Tatum and his fellow appellants won in the Court of Appeals, Laird and his fellow appellees decided to seek review by the Supreme Court. They successfully petitioned for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court directing the Court of Appeals to send up the record of the case (trial court transcript, motion papers, and assorted legal documents) to the Supreme Court. At this point the name of the case changed to Laird v. Tatum: Laird and associates were now the petitioners, and Tatum and his fellows were the respondents. Several church groups and a group of former intelligence agents obtained permission to file briefs (written arguments) on behalf of the respondents to help persuade the Court to arrive at a decision favorable to them. Each of these groups was termed an amicus curiae, or friend of the court. In criminal cases, switches in the titles of cases are common, because most reach the appellate courts as a result of an appeal by a convicted defendant. Thus, the case of Arizona v. Miranda later became Miranda v. Arizona. STUDENT BRIEFS These can be extensive or short, depending on the depth of analysis required and the demands of the instructor. A comprehensive brief includes the following elements: 1. Title and Citation 2. Facts of the Case

3. Issues 4. Decisions (Holdings) 5. Reasoning (Rationale) 6. Separate Opinions 7. Analysis 1. Title and Citation The title of the case shows who is opposing whom. The name of the person who initiated legal action in that particular court will always appear first. Since the losers often appeal to a higher court, this can get confusing. The first section of this guide shows you how to identify the players without a scorecard. The citation tells how to locate the reporter of the case in the appropriate case reporter. If you know only the title of the case, the citation to it can be found using the case digest covering that court, or one of the computer-assisted legal research tools (Westlaw or LEXIS-NEXIS). 2. Facts of the Case 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/s. The facts are often conveniently summarized at the beginning of the courts 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 the lower courts, for example: defendant convicted; conviction upheld by appellate court; Supreme Court granted certiorari. 3. Issues 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 by the lower courts 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 significant to citizens and officials alike. Be sure you have included 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 issues, it may help to phrase them in terms of questions that can be answered with a precise yes or no. For 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 boards practice of excluding black pupils from certain public schools solely due to 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 identifying 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, so 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 issues, legal issue, and so on. Remember too, that the same case may be used by instructors for different purposes, so part 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. 4. Decisions The decision, or holding, is the courts answer to a question presented to it for answer by the parties involved or raised by the court itself in its own reading of the case. There are narrow procedural holdings, for example, case reversed and remanded, broader substantive holdings which deal with the interpretation of the Constitution, statutes, or judicial doctrines. If the issues have been drawn precisely, the holdings can be stated in simple yes or no answers or in short statements taken from the language used by the court. 5. Reasoning 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. 6. Separate Opinions Both concurring and dissenting opinions should be subjected to the same depth of analysis to bring out the major points of agreement or disagreement with the majority opinion. Make a note of how each justice voted and how they lined up. Knowledge of how judges of a particular court normally line up on particular issues is esssential to anticipating how they will vote in future cases involving similar issues. 7. Analysis Here the student should evaluate the significance of the case, its relationship to other cases, its place in history, and what is shows about the Court, its members, its decision-making processes, or the impact it has on litigants, government, or society. It is here that the implicit assumptions and values of the Justices should be probed, the rightness of the decision debated, and the logic of the reasoning considered. A CAUTIONARY NOTE Dont brief the case until you have read it through at least once. Dont think that because you have found the judges best purple prose you have necessarily extracted the essence of the decision. Look for unarticulated premises, logical fallacies, manipulation of the factual record, or distortions of precedent. Then ask, How does this case relate to other cases in the same general area of law? What does it show about judicial policymaking? Does the result violate your sense of justice or fairness? How might it have been better decided?
FURTHER INFORMATION AND SAMPLE BRIEFS Discussion of the student brief, with examples, is given in: Delaney, J. (1987). Learning legal reasoning: Briefing, analysis and theory. Bogota, NJ: John Delaney Publications. [Stacks KF 240 .D39 1987b] Smith, D.J. (1996). Legal research and writing. New York: Delmar Publishers. [Stacks KF 240 .S6 1996] (See pages 212-221) Statsky, W.P., & Wernet, R.J. (1989). Case analysis and fundamentals of legal writing. 3rd ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. [Ref. Law & Stacks KF 240 .S78] (See Chapter 12: A Composite Brief) Teply, L.L. (1990). Legal writing, analysis, and oral argument. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. [Stacks KF 250 .T46 1990] (See page 146 - Briefing judicial opinions for legal research and writing purposes). Wren, C.G. & Wren, J.R. (1988). The legal research manual: a game plan for legal research and analysis. 2nd ed. Madison, WI: Adams & Ambrose. [Ref. Law KF 240 .W7] (See pages 91 & 146) Yelin, A.B. & Samborn, H.R. (1996). The legal research and writing handbook: A basic approach for paralegals. Boston: Aspen Publishers, Inc. [Ref. Law KF 240 .Y45 1996] (See Chapter 4: Briefing Cases) Most of the standard guides to legal research include discussion of the appellate brief and other types of legal memoranda used by practicing attorneys. Detailed consideration of these forms, with examples, are given in the books owned by the Library listed below: Introduction to advocacy: Research, writing, and argument. (1996). 6th ed. Westbury, NY: The Foundation Press, Inc. [Stacks KF 281 .A2 I57 1996] Peck, G. (1984). Writing persuasive briefs. Boston: Little, Brown. [Ref. Law KF 251 .P4 1984] Pratt, D.V. (1993). Legal writing: A systematic approach. 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. [Stacks KF 250 .P73 1993] Price, M.O. (1979). Effective legal research. 4th ed. Boston: Little, Brown. [Ref. Law KF 240 .P7 1979] Re, E.D. (1993). Brief writing and oral argument. 7th ed. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana. [Ref. Law KF 251 .R4 1993] Rombauer, M.D. (1983). Legal problem solving: Analysis, research and writing. 4th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing. [Ref. Law KF 240 .R64 1983]

Ten Tips for Future Law Students: How to Succeed in Law School You come in here with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer. Professor Kingsfield, The Paper Chase . Professor Kingsfield was right; law school changes the way you read, the way you think, and the way you analyze. Not unlike boot camp, this three-year odyssey is

meant to break you and then remake you into something better than you were before. There are a number of things that you can do to ensure you come out on top when all the making and breaking is done: 1. Get advice from 2Ls and 3Ls who are successful in the areas you want to be successful in. There are a number of ways to be successful in law school. You can make the highest grades, become an acclaimed advocate, or become an editor for a law review or law journal. An important key to being successful in law school is getting advice from students who are already successful in the areas you want to be successful in. Every law student wants to make good grades, and high grades, more than anything else, are rewarded upon graduation. Find students who are at the top of their class and find what worked for them, how they managed their time, and how they prepared for their finals. Find students who have had the professors you are taking to get an idea of what to expect and what the professor expects of you. If you want to focus on honing your litigation skills, seek out a mentor who has been on a national mock trial or moot court team. If you want to become an editor on law review or a law journal, focus on improving your writing skills, pay attention to detail, and find someone who already is on a journal to learn about what it is like being on a journal and tips on effectively managing your time. 2. How you do on the final is much more important than how you answer a question in class. The Socratic Method strikes fear in the hearts of 1Ls across the nation every year, and it is easy to be caught up in just reading for class to make sure you can answer the question when the professor calls on you. However, knowing the minutiae of every case is not what is going to get you the best grades, you need to be able to step back and see the big picture, so dont sweat it if you get an answer wrong in class, but make sure you understand why you missed it, and focus on preparing for the final. 3. Dont reinvent the wheel. Every year brave young law students start their outlines from scratch. While there is utility in analyzing cases and creating your own outlines, especially when you first start studying the law, the time you have available to you in law school is limited. Make the best use of your time by using existing outlines as a starting point, which you can then tweak and make your own. Conversely, you will never want to rely solely on someone elses outline. Make sure you agree with their conclusions and summary of the law. When in doubt, consult with your professor. 4. Get to know your professors. Law schools pride themselves on low student to professor ratios and as a result most law school professors have the opportunity to get to know their students. However, it is up to the students to take advantage of this opportunity. Take the time to meet with professors when questions in during the semester, rather than waiting till the end of the semester to approach them. There are students who never set foot in a professors office do very well on their exams. Just because they havent been in the professors office doesnt mean they havent spent the semester getting to know the professor. Successful students seek out prior exams or model exams that the professor has made available, and contemplates questions that could arise while they study, so that they know what to expect on test day. 5. Get to know your law librarians. Law librarians are a great resource. They know how to use online resources like Westlaw and Lexis, as well as print resources better than probably anyone else in the law school. They are also there to help you find what you are looking for. There are numerous databases and resources that are often overlooked by even experienced researchers or lawyers that law librarians are familiar with. They can also assist you in forming good Boolean searches, give you search tips, and point you to the best starting point for your topic. 6. Find time for yourself. Law school will likely be the most challenging endeavor you will have undertaken at this point in your life. It is important, now more than ever, to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Regular sleep patterns and exercise may seem hard to fit into your schedule, but are even more important now that it seems like you dont have time for either. 7. Use technology wisely. The smaller the laptop, the better. You law school books are going to take up a lot of space and the last thing you need is a 17 inch laptop to lug around every day. Back up your work religiously. Email yourself documents that you are working on at the end of each day. On the weekends, back your laptop up to external drives or at the very least to a thumb drive. Finally, use a free service like Mozy to back up your documents on a regular basis. 8. Master the law school exam. Your entire grade for a law school class is often based on a single final exam. Master the law school exam process: http://www.leews.com/ and Getting To Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams . At the very least, pick up old exams and do practice questions under timed conditions. Also, be aware that very often commercial outlines go into areas of law not covered by your professor, so to maximize your study time, seek out old exams or practice questions from the professor, the law school library, or other students. Law school exams usually consist of a long fact pattern followed by a series of questions. There are often no right or wrong answers. You are getting graded on

spotting issues and them analyzing the potential outcomes. The facts usually come down somewhere in between two or more cases you looked at in your reading so you will have to compare the facts presented with fact patterns you came across in your reading and then predict how the court will come out. The prediction isnt what you are graded on; it is the analysis of the facts and law that leads to your prediction that is graded. If you dont correctly spot the issue, you lose the opportunity to get points for either the analysis. A very simple way to think of a law school answer is set forth by the IRAC Method: Issue, Rule of Law, Analysis, and Conclusion. 9. Consider joining a study group. Going over the material with another person or a small group of people will help you hash out concepts, and ensure a thorough overview of the subject. Study groups sessions should be secondary to extensive individual study, so as a group you can focus on practice questions, clarifying issues, and making sure you have hit all the main concepts. 10. Dont underestimate the value of after-class review or overestimate the value of reading for class. After-class review is as important, if not more important than reading for class. Reviewing after class ensures that you completely understand the material. It should be the third time you are covering the material, the first being when you read before class, and the second being when you went over it in class. After-class review also allows you the opportunity to take any questions you still have on a topic to your professor for clarification. After class review sessions are also the perfect time to review and make notes to your outline. Good luck to all of you starting class here in the next few weeks. I wish you all the best, and look forward to seeing additional tips posted in the comments. Here are some ways to maximize the way you study so that you can learn the most in the shortest time, and make it all stick! Memorization Learning vast amounts of material that can be regurgitated on an exam is vitally important for most of the core classes. Sure, you may never see those questions again, but for the four times each semester that you have your exams, youll be required to pump out facts about the various elements (e.g. criminal law), standards of review (e.g. constitutional law), rules (e.g. property), or other information. Law school is even worse for requiring students to memorize verbatim lots of information that theyll never use again. Simply put, the key to success in most classes is to memorize everything you can. Memorization is important in certain law classes because so much of the material is fact-based. Im sure that when you were younger, you were required to memorize Shakespearian monologues or the capitals of U.S. states. You probably read over each sentence again and again until you could perfect Romeos speeches. The good news is that you have already seen how much material you can memorize. The bad news is that youve been doing it all wrong. The correct way to go about memorizing is by reading the words backwards. Heres a demonstration. Look at this number: 75713650058 Cover up everything with a sheet of paper except the last digit, 8. Now slowly say, eight, aloud three times. Next, slide the paper over one digit and slowly say, ve-eight, three times. Again, slide the paper over to reveal 058 and say, zerove-eight. Continue the exercise all the way until the rst number. Dont try to get ahead of yourself by jumping two to three numbers at a time. Just continue working one number after another until youve nished. Once youre done, test your new memorization skills by covering up everything once again and then saying the number aloud. Are you impressed yet? Go ahead and try memorizing other random things just to get a feel for the backwards memorization technique. Practice on song lyrics and speeches. Just cover up everything but the last word and then work your way back to the beginning. For longer pieces of text, you may want to try memorizing only one paragraph at a time. Once you get the hang of it, youll be able to retain large volumes of material in a short amount of time. You can impress your friends by showing them that you can memorize the serial numbers on dollar bills within seconds of staring at the paper. This technique is not only useful for learning long numbers and speeches, but can easily be applied to law as well. Tkey is to make sure that you have a particular piece fully committed to memory before trying the next item. For the number example above, dont move to 50058 if you cannot say, 0058, without effort. If you want to learn the theory behind this memorization trick, read Karen Pryors Dont Shoot the Dog! or you could go as far as taking behavioral and cognitive psychology courses. As a nal, cautionary note, stay away from ash cards. They are a waste of time to produce. Yes, some people do learn from them, but keep in mind that the time spent writing ash cards could be better spent working on memorizing the material. By the time your friends are done writing their cards, youll be nished studying if you follow the method I described here. If you dont like the backwards memorization technique that Ive described, the book Learn to Remember by Dominic OBrien (ISBN: 0811827151) details methods that use your imagination to create either sequential movies or static pictures of associations to help you remember things.

Speed Reading Another useful tool for learning is speed reading. Youll need to wade through a lot of material very quickly whenever you read for pre-med classes. Like most people reading this manual, youre probably reading every single word in succession. Nicholas Schaffzins Reading Smart is what I used to break this habit. There are plenty of other books on speed reading, but they all teach the same principle. Instead of looking at words as individuals, you should divide each line into three parts, glance at the sections, and then use your peripheral vision to pick up everything. As an example, Figure 1.1 contains an excerpt from Herman Melvilles Moby Dick. Read the paragraph as you would normally. Now move to Figure 1.2 and read the section againthis time by glancing at the bullets. At rst this technique seems pretty odd. Youll need some time to adjust to the new style of reading. The more you practice, however, the better youll get at speed reading. My own pace has doubled ever since I adapted to this method. Again, I only give a summarized explanation of how speed reading works. I strongly suggest that you pick up a book on the subject and learn from it. Figure 1.1: Read this section as you normally would Call me Ishmael. Some years agonever mind how long preciselyhaving little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I nd myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I nd myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking peoples hats offthen, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. Figure 1.2: Now read it again using only the bullets Call me Ishmael. Some years agonever mind how long preciselyhaving little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I nd myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I nd myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking peoples hats offthen, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. Immediate Review Whenever you get out of class, immediately go somewhere quiet and review everything that the professor covered for the day. You should re-derive all of the equations, rework the ways the molecules attach, rewrite the important denitions that were written on the board, etc . . . Neurobiologists have discovered that if you repeat the work done in class within one hour of seeing the material, the information will become part of your permanent memory! While Im sure that after you get done with class, the last thing on your mind is more studying, but trust me when I say that the thirty minutes you spend reworking the lecture now will save you hours later. It will change your life forever. Read more: http://lawvibe.com/law-student-study-tipsmemorization-speed-reading-and-review/#ixzz0ZQd120TC Law school has got to have the most exacting academic environment. The cases we were required to read, some of them a thousand pages long, cant be compared to the study load for, say, economics. (Thats the only course I dare compare law with, since thats the only other course I have intimate knowledge of). And Im not even taking into consideration the codals (or the collection of laws that were codified into thousands of provisions), or the annotations, which were the explanations accompanying those codes (trust me, far from being short notes, they were more like tomes). Early on in law school, we were forced to get a grip of what was necessary to survive. The burning issue was, how did we study all the materials pleasantly sent our way by our loving professors? We had to develop study habits, fast. Some of the things I tried worked, some bombed. In any case, these are some of those that worked. Timing is everything. First, find your schedule. Are you the early bird type, disgustingly bright and cheery first thing in the morning? Or are you more of a late owl, and your minds clear as day only in the wee hours of the night? Can you study on a full stomach, or do you tend to doze off after lunch? Do you prefer to be hungry while absorbing knowledge? Get your body clock, and once you know that, try sticking to it. But if your schedule does not permit you, why not take a cup of coffee to keep you focused and alert? Numerous studies have shown that coffee aids in mental awareness. I also have this non-scientifically tested belief that the brain processes info while a person is sleeping. So, mostly, I studied until midnight, and then I tried to get a

great nights sleep. Theres a lot to be said for sleep, including having energy not just for the exam, but the party afterwards. But thats just me. I know some people who are capable of studying all night, not sleeping, and then walking into an exam room still functional. Again, it depends on what works for you. Study aids. If I had to study in the afternoon, then I made sure I had a cup of coffee to fight that dangerously delicious siesta beckoning in the corner. Coffee always did the trick. Sometimes, just that distinct aroma that coffee gives is enough to heighten the senses. You might have your own pick-me-upper, like gum or a chocolate bar. Hopefully, something nutritious, nothing deleterious. Whatever it is, stock up on it, and make sure theyre available for easy access. Location, location, location. Presumably you already know what works for you, space-wise. Are you the type who cant study unless you have a herd of miserable companions suffering alongside? Does a library full of eye candy work for you, so you can scope the landscape for inspiration every now and then? Or is it too distracting by far, and youd much prefer blank white walls and zero distraction? Whatever it is, make sure you have that space available to you right before a crucial exam. Original McCoy. I belong to the segurista school of thought. Nothing compares to reading the material in the original. Sure, digests and outlines prepared by other brilliant students light years ahead can save you time. But who knows if they omitted something they thought was unnecessary, but that something wasnt within your data banks yet? So to be safe, read the original text, especially if you do have the time. Dont take the easy shortcuts - they could be fatal. Still have time? Read the assigned material, and then read the digest somebody else prepared. Compare the two. Try to critique the digest, and see where crucial items were missed. Once youve critiqued it, youve just made it easier to learn the material by heart. Dry Run. Did you know dancers try to go through the choreography in their heads as a way of rehearsing? Its actually a great idea. After youve gone through the material, do a mental run through of everything that youve read. Just try to remember everything, without referring to your notes. Youll find out where the gaps are. This process can tell you what you know, and what you didnt retain. The good news is, you still have time to look up whats missing. Then you can pick up what got left behind. The juice. Very importanttry to get the kernel. Not everythings a matter of life and death if you forget them. Try to figure out why the material was assigned, and whats important for you to learn. Sometimes it doesnt matter where it happened (unless youre talking about jurisdiction in criminal law) or when it happened (unless youre arguing about whether the case has been superseded or repealed). Who cares about the sex of the party (unless its the crime of concubinage) or his age (unless hes a minor wanting to get married). Is the number of carabaos stolen material? Do you have to know the time the incident happened? You might answer, most probably not, but the answers actually a maybe. The point Im trying to make is that certain details count, others dont. With too much information in your hands, it all boils down to filleting the essential from the crap. Focus on why youre studying the case. How is it related to the provision of the law? What made that crazy professor, who combined the hodge-podge of seemingly unrelated cases into one cohesive course outline, assign this particular case? Try to find the method in the madness. Once you know what to look for, then youre safely on track. Refresh. Still got time? Get a relaxing cup of coffee, and read everything all over again. The rule of thumb they gave in law school was, read everything thrice. Totally impossible, unless youre a whiz at speed-reading. But reading it twice does let you pick up nuances you might have missed during the first pass. Things you learn in the middle or the end of the semester could clarify the cases you were grappling with at the beginning of the sem, so it pays to go over the material one more time. It can give you a holistic picture of the entire course. (Natch, that should give you an advantage over everybody else.) Benchmark. Talk to your classmates and try to get a feel of what they understand of the material. Is their understanding pretty much the same as yours? Discuss sticky issues. The process of discussion lets you articulate and process the things youve read (and makes it easier to retain what you discussed). Come exam time, and questions related to your discussion pop up, youll find it that much easier to retrieve from your mental files. Worse comes to worst, youll pick up something useful from the discussion, and learn something. (And thats really why youre in school, right?) Of course, theres also the danger of finding out nobody else studied as much as you did, and you get a false sense of complacency. Or you might end up lulling yourself into thinking youre smarter than everybody else. But dont worry. Law school has an amazing ability to humble most people.