The document provides guidance on writing legal briefs that summarize case law. It outlines the typical components of a brief, including the case citation, facts, procedure, issues, holding, and reasoning. For example, the facts section should outline only the key factual details necessary to understand how the law applies to the case. The issues section should pose questions that can be answered yes or no. The holding then answers the issues, and the reasoning explains the court's analysis.

1. BRIEFING CASES
Keeping Review of Case Law Simple and Useful

2. BRIEFS KEEP JUDGES HAPPY!

3. COMPONENTS OF A LEGAL BRIEF
• Case Citation
• Facts of the Case
• Procedure
• Issues
• Holding
• Reasoning of the Majority Opinion

4. THE CASE CITATION – OFFICIAL
NAME OF THE CASE

5. FACTS OF THE CASE
• This is a very Important Part of the Brief because it
outlines the particular factual situation that the
Court is Reviewing to make its decision as to how the
law should be applied
• Caution Should Be Take to Only Include the
Information Needed to Resolve the Case Issues
Before the Court – [this is actually hard to do and
takes the most practice]

6. COURT PROCEDURE
• Most Cases That Are Used in Casebooks Such as the Text in This Class are
Decisions Rendered by Appellate Courts
• Appellate Court Decisions Do Not re-try the facts of the case: The Appellate
Court Reviews the Record of the Trial To Make Sure The Trial Judge Didn’t
Make any Errors in Applying the Appropriate Law
• In This Portion of The Brief You Want to List What Happened in The Lower
Court – for example: The jury returned a verdict for the Plaintiff in the case
and the Trial Judge entered the Court’s judgment on that Verdict
• You only need to list a sentence or two describing this aspect. The party
appealing the case must suggest to the appellate court what legal errors
the trial court made.

7. ISSUES TO BE DECIDED IN THE CASE
• This is a CRITICAL part of the Brief: It asks the Appellate
Court a Question as to Whether the Trial Judge Correctly
Applied the Law (substantive or procedural) in the case
• The Questions (there will be at least one) posed should be
set forth in a way that a “yes or “no” answer can be given
• Example: Did the Trial Judge Error in Refusing to Permit the
Introduction of Parol Evidence to Suggest What Defendant
Understood Defendant’s Obligations to be Under the
Contract?

8. HOLDING
• This Part of the Brief Answers the Question(s) Posed in the
Issues Portion of the Brief
• Example: No [to the question as to whether or not the Trial
Judge Committed Error in refusing to admit Parol evidence
of what Plaintiff thought Defendant’s Obligations Were under
the Contract) The Judgment of the Circuit Court of St. Louis
County, Division 41 is AFFIRMED

9. REASONING OF THE COURT
MAJORITY
• THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE BRIEF!
• List and explain the elements of the decision rendered by the Majority
of Judges on the Appellate Panel
• This portion of your brief can be quite detailed.
• It should state what the law was prior to this opinion and (if
applicable) how this decision changed the established law and why
• In law school classes professors analyze the various elements of the
decision and grill students in the class on those elements and whether
or not the changes made by the decision are “right.”

10. CONCURRING AND DISSENTING
OPINIONS
• Decisions rendered by Appellate Courts will follow the reasoning of the
Majority of the Judges on the Appellate Panel. In the U.S, Supreme Court, if
the Chief Justice is in the Majority, he assigns the writing of the Opinion to
himself or one of the other Justices in the Majority
• There may be concurring opinions – judges concurring vote with the majority
but believe that different principles should be applied in the application of
that decision
• There also may be dissenting opinions where the Judges or Justices
dissenting believe that the legal principles applied by the Majority Judges or
Justices are incorrect. The dissenting opinion will explain why. Usually you
don’t need to brief dissenting opinions

11. JUDICIAL PANELS

12. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES

13. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
• Rules don’t stand by themselves without some sort of policy behind them
• If there’s not a sound policy behind a rule, the court tries to fashion a rule
that serves the principles of equity or justice.
• Sometimes a policy that does not further the policies of equity or justice
binds the judge – in these cases, the judge upholds the law as written but
structures his opinion so as to bring the injustice to the attention of the
legislature so that they can change it.
• Dicta refers to anything in the opinion that isn’t relevant to the case’s
holding. Dicta has no precedential value but is an indication of how a court
might rule given different circumstances.

14. EXAMPLE: JAPAN – TAXES ON
ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES
• This WTO Case appears (in summary form) on pp. 352-354 of
the text)
• The Facts of the case indicate that the United States,
Canada, and the European Union complained that Japan
imposed lower taxes on shochu, a locally produced
alcoholic beverage, than it did on imported Alcoholic
beverages, including vodka, in violation of Article III,
paragraph 2 of GATT 1994

15. THE ELEMENTS OF A BRIEF
• Case Citation
• Facts of the Case
• Procedure Used in the Case
• Issues to be Decided
• Holding
• Reason of the Tribunal, Court, Arbitration
Panel, etc.

16. THE CASE CITATION
• The Case Citation gives the names of the major parties, The deliberative
body and where the printed opinion is recorded.
• The Case Citation for the Example Used in this Powerpoint:
• United States, Dominion of Canada, European Union, Panel Reports
WT/DS8/R, WT/DS10/R, WT/DS11/R (there are actually three separate cases,
one for each party complaining)
• This is a Dispute Settlement Panel Report can be found on the World Trade
Organization’s website at:
http://www.wto.org/English/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds8_e.htm

17. MORE TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF A U.S.
COURT CITATION
• Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S.; 121 S.Ct. 525; 148 L.Ed 2d, 388
• This was a law suit originally filed with the Florida Court System regarding
irregularities in the Beach County Canvassing Board’s handling of the voter
returns in the hotly contested 2000 election between Governor George W.
Bush, the Republican candidate and Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., the
Democratic candidate. Ultimately the decision of the Florida Supreme Court
was appealed on an emergency basis to the United States Supreme Court.
• 531 U.S. indicates that the case opinion is found in Volume 531 of the official
U.S. Reports (Supreme Court Cases) and appears on page 98 of that
volume; it is also published in the Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.) published
by the West Publishing Co. in Volume 121, page 525 and in the reports
published by the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Corporation (L. Ed.) in
Volume 148, page 388. The opinions are identical.

18. MORE ABOUT CITATIONS
• Case reports for the United States Circuit Courts of Appeal are contained in
the Federal Reporter– abbreviated capital F.
• There are a small number of Federal District Court cases reported in these
are reported in the Federal Supplement – F. Supp.
• Reports from the appellate courts of the 50 states are reported in a regional
reporter system based roughly on the geographic location of the court.
These are abbreviated as follows: Atlantic Reporter (A.); Southeastern
Reporter (SE); Southern Reporter (S.), Southwest Reporter (SW) Northern
Reporter (N.); Northeast Reporter (NE); Northwest Reporter (NW); Pacific
Reporter (P.)
• Example: Missouri cases are reported in the Southwestern Reporter and a
case citation would look like this: Doe v. Smith, 131 S.W.3d, 434, (Mo.Banc)
indicating a Missouri Supreme Court Report

19. FACTS OF THE CASE
•The key factors here relate to the nature of
vodka and shochu, a similar Japanese
alcoholic beverage
•The facts in this case fall into two categories:
(1)characteristics of vodka versus shochu as to
manufacture ingredients, and user market,
and others; and (2)facts as to how the tax rate
for each product is composed.

20. PROCEDURE USED IN THE CASE
• In this case the procedure is in the nature of an arbitration
conducted before a Dispute Settlement Panel of the WTO in
Washington, D. C.
• If the matter was before a court instead of an arbitration
panel, the description of the procedure might be: a trial
was held in the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia and the jury verdict was entered in favor of the
plaintiff, United States of America; the Defendant has
appealed the matter to the United States circuit Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

21. ISSUES TO BE DECIDED
• The “Issue” portion of the brief should set forth questions relating to the
dispute between the parties that need to be answered to resolve the
dispute. In this case the brief should include two (2) issues:
• First: are the products which are the subject of this dispute “similar”
products?
• Second: is the taxing country (in this case, Japan) violating the
national treatment principle that is is it discriminating against imported
products in favor of domestic products by taxing the imports at a
higher rate?

22. THE HOLDING
• The “Holding” portion of the brief should contain the
ultimate ruling of the court, the tribunal or the arbitration
panel.
• The holding in this matter would be something like this:
“because shochu and vodka are like products, Japan’s
higher internal taxes on imported vodka then on domestic
shochu violates the national treatment rule of GATT.”

23. REASONING
• This portion of the brief should contain a brief explanation of the tribunal’s, the court’
s or the arbitration panels reasoning as to how it arrived at the particular “holding”
that it published. The reasoning needs to explain such things as how did this
panel/court/tribunal apply the like-products rule to the specific comparison of
vodka in shochu? What specific product and market factors were considered? The
reasoning should also address the analysis of the application of the like products
and national treatment rules within the context of the parties arguments and include
the following:
• Japan imposed higher taxes on imported vodka than it did on shochu. Canada, the
European Union (EU), and the United States claimed that this violated GATT’s
national treatment rule requiring that imported products be taxed the same as like
domestic products. Japan also countered with the argument that vodka and
shochu were not like products and that it’s taxes on alcoholic beverages did not
violate the national treatment rule because the tax/price ratio was “roughly
neutral.”