How to Brief a Case: A Step-by-Step Guide With a Worked Example

A case brief is a short written summary of a court opinion that you prepare for yourself before class. It records the facts that mattered, how the case reached the court, the legal question, the answer, the court's reasoning, and the rule the case stands for, ideally on one page. You write it so that, weeks later, you can recall the case in thirty seconds when a professor calls on you or an exam question turns on it.

This guide walks through each part of a brief, then shows a complete brief of a classic first-year contracts case, Lucy v. Zehmer, so you can see what a finished one looks like.

Why brief cases at all

Your briefs are usually not graded, and most professors never ask to see them. Briefing still earns its time for three reasons:

• It forces you to understand the case. As the Westlaw law school guide puts it, you have to distill the case's most important parts and restate them in your own words. If you cannot write the holding in a sentence, you have not understood it yet.
• It prepares you for cold calls. In a Socratic classroom, the brief is what you look at when the professor asks, "What happened in this case?"
• It feeds your outline. At the end of the semester you turn rules from your briefs into the outline you study for the exam.

The parts of a case brief

Formats vary by professor and by school. The Westlaw student guide lists all of these parts. Other guides, such as the LexisNexis and University of Wisconsin guides, treat some of them as optional or fold them into the Facts.

1. Caption

The case name, court, year and citation, plus the casebook page number so you can find it in class. Example: Lucy v. Zehmer, 196 Va. 493, 84 S.E.2d 516 (1954).

2. Facts

Only the facts that affected the outcome, in your own words. The Westlaw guide's example: in a car accident case, the color of the cars is seldom relevant. Who the parties are, what each did, and what the dispute is about usually are. A good test: if this fact were different, would the court have decided differently? If not, leave it out.

3. Procedural history

What happened in the lower courts: who sued whom, for what, what the trial court decided, and who appealed. Most casebook opinions come from appellate courts, so this tells you what the court is reviewing. It matters most in Civil Procedure.

4. Issue

The legal question the court decided, phrased so it can be answered yes or no. Make it about law applied to the key facts, not about procedure. "Did the trial court err?" is a weak issue; "Is a person bound by a written agreement he signed while privately treating it as a joke?" is a strong one.

5. Holding

The court's answer to the issue, starting with "Yes" or "No," then the legal principle in one sentence. The hardest part is framing it at the right breadth. Too narrow, and it seems to apply only to identical facts; too broad, and it claims more than the court decided. The Wisconsin guide's illustration is a non-compete case: a holding limited to one hair salon's six-month leaflet ban is too narrow, and one saying any business can stop former employees from competing is too broad.

6. Reasoning

Why the court decided as it did: the rule it applied, how it applied the rule to the facts, and any policy reasons. This is the section you will use most on exams, because it tells you how the court would handle a different set of facts.

7. Disposition and other opinions

The final result (affirmed, reversed, remanded) and a line or two on any concurrence or dissent. Casebooks often include dissents because they present an alternative analysis that a professor will ask about.

Many students add an eighth line, "Rule" or "Takeaway," for the one-sentence principle they will copy into their outline.

Worked example: a complete brief of Lucy v. Zehmer

Read the full opinion first, then compare your brief with this one. Our longer Lucy v. Zehmer case summary covers the background in more depth.

Caption	Lucy v. Zehmer, 196 Va. 493, 84 S.E.2d 516 (1954). Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. Opinion by Buchanan, J.
Facts	On the evening of December 20, 1952, W. O. Lucy and A. H. Zehmer had drinks at Zehmer's restaurant in McKenney, Virginia. Lucy offered $50,000 for Zehmer's 471.6-acre Ferguson farm. After a discussion that Lucy said lasted 30 to 40 minutes, Zehmer wrote on the back of a restaurant check, "We hereby agree to sell to W. O. Lucy the Ferguson Farm complete for $50,000.00, title satisfactory to buyer," and he and his wife Ida signed it. The next day Lucy arranged for his brother to take a half interest, then had the title examined and wrote to Zehmer that he was ready to pay in cash. Zehmer replied that he had never agreed or intended to sell. In the suit he claimed the whole thing was a joke made while both men had been drinking.
Procedural history	Lucy (with his brother, who had taken a half interest) sued for specific performance. The trial court held they had failed to establish a right to specific performance and dismissed the suit. The Lucys appealed.
Issues	(1) Is a seller bound by a signed written agreement to sell land when he claims he secretly meant it as a joke, and when his words and conduct would lead a reasonable person to believe he meant a real sale? (2) If so, should equity order specific performance?
Holdings	(1) Yes. A contract is formed when a party's words and acts, judged by a reasonable standard, manifest an intention to agree, whatever that party's unexpressed intention. (2) Yes. Nothing made enforcement inequitable.
Reasoning	(1) Zehmer was not so intoxicated as to be unable to understand the nature and consequences of the instrument he signed: he later testified in detail about the evening. (2) The circumstances showed a serious transaction: a discussion of forty minutes or more, including what the sale would include ("complete, everything there"); Zehmer's rewriting of the whole agreement in the plural, at Lucy's insistence, so his wife could sign; the title clause and the completeness of the instrument; and Lucy keeping the paper with no request by either defendant to give it back. (3) Under the objective theory, "if his words and acts, judged by a reasonable standard, manifest an intention to agree, it is immaterial what may be the real but unexpressed state of his mind." A person "cannot set up that he was merely jesting when his conduct and words would warrant a reasonable person in believing that he intended a real agreement." Lucy actually believed the deal was serious, and the evidence showed he was warranted in believing it. (4) Specific performance was proper: there was no fraud, misrepresentation, sharp practice or dealing between unequal parties, and $50,000 was an admittedly good price for land Zehmer had bought for $11,000.
Disposition	Reversed and remanded for a decree requiring the Zehmers to perform the contract. No separate opinions.
Rule for the outline	Objective theory of assent: a party's outward words and conduct, not secret intent, decide whether a contract was formed. A secret joke is no defense if a reasonable person would take the offer seriously.

Notice what was left out: Zehmer's "high as a Georgia pine" testimony, the three heifers on the farm, his claim that he had misspelled "Ferguson" as "Firgerson." They make the opinion memorable but did not decide the case. Notice also what stayed in: the main facts the court relied on to find the deal serious.

Book briefing vs. full written briefs

Writing a full brief for every case takes hours a week. Many students switch partway through the first semester to book briefing: highlighting the opinion itself in different colors (one for facts, one for the holding, one for reasoning) and writing short notes in the margin. The LexisNexis guide recommends annotating the case even if you also write a brief, because you will go back to the opinion to check details. It treats highlighting as a complement to briefing, not a substitute: putting the case in your own words builds an understanding that passive highlighting does not.

Our suggestion: write full briefs for the first few weeks until you can reliably find the holding, then move to book briefs plus a three-line summary (issue, holding, rule) for each case.

How a case brief differs from IRAC

	Case brief	IRAC exam answer
Purpose	Summarize what a court already decided	Analyze a new fact pattern and predict the outcome
Starts from	A judicial opinion	A hypothetical on the exam
Parts	Facts, procedural history, issue, holding, reasoning, disposition	Issue, rule, application, conclusion
How they connect	The rule from your briefs becomes the "R" in IRAC, and their facts and reasoning supply the comparisons in your "A"

Common case-briefing mistakes

• Copying long passages of the court's words. Paraphrase, quoting only the one key rule sentence if it matters. If you cannot put the reasoning in your own words, you have not understood it yet.
• Briefing while reading for the first time. You cannot tell which facts matter until you know the outcome. Read the whole case first.
• Too much detail. A brief should be brief. Aim for one page.
• Confusing the holding with the judgment. "Reversed" is the disposition. The holding is the legal principle that produced it.
• Treating dicta as the rule. Discussion that was not necessary to decide the case is not part of its rule.
• Mistaking the parties' arguments for the issue. The issue is the question the court actually decided.
• Ignoring the casebook's context. Ask why the editors put the case in this chapter. That usually tells you the point your professor will press.

A blank template

Caption	Case name, citation, court, year, casebook page
Facts	Outcome-determinative facts only
Procedural history	Who sued, what the lower court did, who appealed
Issue	A yes-or-no legal question
Holding	Yes or no, plus the principle in one sentence
Reasoning	Rule, application to the facts, policy
Disposition	Affirmed, reversed, remanded
Other opinions	Concurrences and dissents in a line each
Rule for the outline	One sentence

Practice cases

Try briefing one of these yourself, then compare your brief with our summary:

• Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. (contracts: unilateral offers)
• Dickinson v. Dodds (contracts: revoking an offer)
• Donoghue v. Stevenson (torts: duty of care)
• R v. Dudley and Stephens (criminal law: necessity)

Related reading

• Promissory estoppel
• Meeting of the minds in contract law
• Difference between civil law and criminal law

Sources

• Lucy v. Zehmer, 196 Va. 493, 84 S.E.2d 516 (1954)
• University of Wisconsin Law School, A Guide to Case Briefing
• Westlaw Law School, Briefing Cases
• LexisNexis, How to Write a Case Brief for Law School