Would you like to learn how to prepare the right kind of case brief?
Have you heard that case briefing is a waste of time?
If you don’t brief cases, you may fall into what is known as the illusion of competence,
which occurs when you read cases multiple times or only highlight while reading.
So today I will demonstrate the right kind of case briefing and explain why doing them
will help you on your final exams.
Hello lawlings, this is Professor Beau Baez.
The case brief is designed to help you understand the law at a deeper level and to also help
you prepare for your exams.
You ask, pray tell, how does this magic work?
When you read a case, your brain stores that information, but memory begins degrading
very quickly—most knowledge disappears within 48 hours.
When you think about the case during the case briefing process, you reinforce that knowledge,
helping your brain make strong neural connections to it in a way that doesn’t fade away within
a few days.
A second issue involves the frustration many of you feel when you can’t keep up with
the reading and case briefing.
This is primarily because you were taught to prepare long briefs.
That’s an oxymoron.
How can you write something is both long and brief?
I will demonstrate the FIRAC case briefing method, which I’ve discussed in a prior video.
When you prepare a case brief, keep it to about half a page in length.
And cut out the procedural posturing in the case, unless you are briefing a case in civil procedure.
So with that, I will now brief three cases, one intentional tort, one from negligence,
and the third from business associations.
If you want to follow along, in the description below I will provide a link
to my blog where you can read the cases before I brief them here.
I’ll wait…..
Really, go look at them.
By the way, at the end of this video I will explain why case briefing helps with exam preparation.
Alright, let’s begin.
Well hopefully you've had a chance to review the three cases that I posted on my blog.
The first one I'm going to go through is an intentional tort called Polmatier v. Russ.
I've already read the cases, and now I'm just writing the case brief--
again, brief being the key operative term--
for this case
So first I'm just going to write the name out
Polmatier v Russ.
Remember, this is for me.
It's not for anyone else. They're my notes.
So the first part of FIRAC is facts.
I'm just going to put F.
And the facts section should be short.
It could be a few words.
Doesn't have to be very long.
It's something that will jog your memory when you're discussing it in class.
So since I've already read the case and I have a familiarity with it,
what will help me remember this case is:
Insane person who killed his father-in-law.
That's all I need.
That will help me remember the case.
That's the only reason for this facts section.
Now later, in the application section, we're going to need more facts from the case to help us make our case.
But for now, this is enough for me to remember.
Now we're going to practice our IRAC skills.
And this is why I recommend FIRAC--in fact, let's put it out there: I R A C.
And you can have this already written out in a pre ... some kind of form with FIRAC
so you don't have to repeat it, then you can just copy and paste it every time.
So the issue in this case is whether an insane person,
who makes an irrational choice can be held liable for an intentional tort.
That's the issue.
Then the rule statement.
The rule.
So the rule here is not my rule.
I'm pulling the rule out from the case.
So you want to make sure you look for the court's rule statement.
And the rule here is:
An insane person, who makes an irrational decision
can be held liable for an intentional tort
if he acted with the necessary intent.
You can phrase this differently.
That's what I pulled out of it.
I you phrase it a little bit differently, there are many ways of doing this.
But this is, more or less, the rule statement from the case.
Now the application section.
This is where I take ...
Now, let me be clear.
I was talking to somebody, and they were a little bit confused about what to write here.
This is where you take the facts from the case and you apply them to the rule
to reach whatever conclusion the court reached.
Not what you think the court should have reached, but what the court actually reached.
In fact, if you want to write the conclusion first, sometimes that might be helpful.
You might just want to write here ... there's nothing magic about the order.
Conclusion:
Court held that the defendant had the intent necessary to commit a battery.
That's the court's conclusion.
That answers the legal question, or the issue in the case.
And finally the application.
And the application here is going to be:
In this case the defendant believed he was god,
could control the destiny of others, and make his bed fly from the window.
Though he was insane, when he took a gun and shot his father-in-law, he knew what he was doing.
That's it. That's the element, right.
You desire the result, you know to a substantial certainty, so that he knew, when he took that gun,
he knew what he was doing.
And there we go, you can see I've kept it under half a page in length.
So that's Polmatier versus Russ.
And you see how it forced me to, kind of, go back to the case.
It forced me to really thing through, and just in a couple of sentences
which facts were going to lead me to the conclusion.
In this case, that the court concluded that he had the intent necessary to commit a battery.
Alright, so that's Polmatier.
Next case we're going to look at is Stinnett versus Buchele.
Facts:
And here I'm going to put:
Roofer who worked for doc fell off roof.
That's enough for me to remember the case.
If you need a little bit more for you to remember a case, that's fine.
After my reading of the case, this is enough for me to remember ...
oh yeah, it's that case where the guy fell off the roof, he hurt himself.
There's a lot more that I remember, but here, the purpose here is to just put down
one quick fact that will help me remember this for classroom discussion.
That's the fact section.
Issue: I R A C.
To show you again that it doesn't matter where I start.
I know the conclusion to the case.
The court is going to conclude that the defendant did not breach he duty of care.
So if I want to move there, and that kind of helps me see where I'm going.
Because ultimately, when we read a case, or writing an exam, we start with the end in mind.
In this case the end is: we know he did not breach his duty of care.
Now let's fit everything else in.
So the issue in this case. Issue:
Of course, this is going to ask a question that answers the conclusion we just reached
Is the doctor negligent for failing to provide safety devices to his employee.
The rule:
To be liable for negligence, one must fail to act as a reasonably prudent person.
And then the application.
The roofer had experience working on roofs and his employer, a doctor, did not.
Doctor would have provided all equipment necessary for repairing roof.
Sorry, typos.
But the roofer did not ask for any safety equipment.
Since roofer failed to ask for the equipment he cannot later claim that the doctor acted unreasonably,
since the roofer was in a better position to know what equipment was needed.
Alright, there we go, Stinnett versus Buchele, done.
Didn't take very long, wrote it out. Again, less than half a page.
So the final case, you will often find in a business associations course,under the agency material.
Sometimes in a Torts book, if your professor decides to cover respondeat superior or vicarious liability.
So first the case name: Fruit versus Schreiner.
And then we just put a fact.
And here it's the case where employee runs over plaintiff late at night in Alaska.
That's what works for me.
If there's a different set of facts that helps you remember the case, that's great.
But for me, there's so few cases that I read that are from Alaska ...
I just remember, oh yeah, this is that case dealing with the Alaska situation.
All rights, let's move on to the issue.
I R A C
And again I'm going to start with the conclusion, it's just easy.
In this case, employer is liable for the acts of the employee,
who was found to be acting within the scope of his employment.
That's the conclusion.
So the issue in this case, let's go there.
I: whether an employer is liable under vicarious liability
when an employee is engaged in a social function after work. More or less.
We could refine that, but again the goal here is to get through this, more or less.
It doesn't have to be perfect. We're not looking for a perfect product.
Then we get to the rule statement.
So the rule here:
An employer is vicariously liable under respondeat superior when an employee
commits a tortious act during the scope of his employment.
And then the application.
Employee was at an employer sponsored convention and
had instructions to mingle with other convention goers.
The employee went out to a bar at 2 am in the morning to look for other convention goers,
but they were not at the bar.
He then hit the plaintiff.
He was acting within the scope of his employment because he was at the bar
based on the employer's business, which included mingling, or getting to know
the other convention goers.
More or less.
But there we go, this is a little bit longer.
You see than the other ones, the application was a little bit longer, had to work through that a little bit more.
And there you go.
Now, after classroom discussion, the only thing you need from this case brief is that rule statement.
So you want to go back after class room discussion, and one, verify that it is the correct rule statement.
If you got it wrong, tweak it.
Take that rule statement out, put it into your rule outline.
And with that, you're done with your case briefing.
And this skill, you learn how to do it pretty fast,
is going to help you ingrain the IRAC method, so that when you get to exam day
this will become second nature.
I hope you found this useful and that it helps you see that, when done correctly, you do have the time to brief cases.
If you still aren't convinced, ask yourself whether you want to forget the law after you talk about it in class,
and then have to relearn it, or at least most of it, for the final exam.
That's a complete time waster.
You might also be wondering how case briefing helps you with exam prep.
By using the FIRAC method, you are reinforcing the IRAC exam writing method.
You are also making stronger connections to your legal memory by writing the briefs,
which will help you retain the law longer.
New videos every other Wednesday.
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