Case Reading, Briefing and Synthesis: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Legal Research and Writing Topic 3, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
A short structured summary of an opinion capturing facts, procedural posture, issue, holding, reasoning, and disposition, written to make the case usable in class and in later drafting.
Legally significant fact
A fact that, if changed, could change the outcome because the court's rule turns on it. These belong in a brief and in a memo's fact statement; colorful background does not.
Procedural posture
How the case arrived at the deciding court, such as review of a dismissal, summary judgment, directed verdict, or jury verdict. Posture controls what the court assumed about the facts.
Issue statement in a brief
A one sentence question joining the governing legal rule to the determinative facts, phrased narrowly enough that the answer is the case's actual holding.
Reasoning of an opinion
The chain connecting the rule to the outcome, including the court's reading of precedent, its treatment of contrary authority, and any policy justification it offers.
Disposition
What the reviewing court did with the judgment below, such as affirm, reverse, vacate, remand, or affirm in part. It signals who won and what happens next in the litigation.
Majority opinion
The opinion joined by enough judges to control the result and its reasoning. Only the majority's necessary reasoning becomes precedent for later courts in the jurisdiction.
Plurality opinion
The opinion with the most votes but short of a majority. Its reasoning does not bind, so later courts look for the narrowest ground on which the deciding judges agreed.
Concurrence
An opinion agreeing with the result on different or additional reasoning. Persuasive only, but a concurrence often previews where the doctrine will move next.
Dissent
An opinion disagreeing with the outcome. It has no precedential force, yet it maps the strongest counterarguments and can guide advocacy in a jurisdiction reconsidering the rule.
Case synthesis
Combining several decisions into one coherent rule statement that explains all the outcomes, rather than describing each case in turn. Synthesis is the core skill of the memo's rule section.
Rule from a line of cases
A generalization drawn by asking what the winning cases share and what the losing cases lack, then stating the shared condition as an operative test with its exceptions.
Factor test
A rule listing considerations no one of which controls, so synthesis must explain how courts weight the factors and which combinations have proved decisive in practice.
Element test
A rule listing requirements that must all be satisfied, so analysis proceeds requirement by requirement and a failure on any one ends the claim.
Bright line rule
A rule producing the same answer from a single easily determined fact, favoring predictability and cheap administration over sensitivity to particular circumstances.
Standard
An open textured rule such as reasonableness that calls for evaluating all circumstances, trading predictability for the ability to reach a fair result in unusual cases.
Narrow reading of precedent
Interpreting a prior holding as limited to its facts, the standard move when the case cuts against the client and the facts differ in a legally meaningful way.
Broad reading of precedent
Interpreting a prior holding as announcing a general principle beyond its facts, the standard move when the case favors the client but the facts are not identical.
Reconciling conflicting cases
Explaining apparently inconsistent outcomes by identifying a hidden variable, such as posture, burden of proof, or a fact category, that accounts for the difference.
Reading a case for procedure
Noting the standard of review, the burden, and the stage of litigation, because a statement made on summary judgment cannot be quoted as a finding after trial.
Subsequent history
What happened to the case after the opinion, including further appeal, remand results, and later legislative override, all of which must be checked before relying on the decision.
Prior history
The rulings that preceded the opinion in the same litigation, useful for understanding the record but usually omitted from a citation unless relevant to the point cited.
Rule of the case versus result
The distinction between the general proposition a case establishes and the specific outcome for those parties, a distinction that keeps rule statements honest and usable.
Overruled decision
A prior holding a superior court has repudiated. It may still be cited for history but never for the abandoned proposition, and citing it as current law is a serious error.
Abrogated decision
A decision whose reasoning has been displaced by a later statute or by an intervening decision on a related point, even though no court has formally overruled it.