State the substance of the ruling— for example, rather than stating “The defendant’s motion for summary judgment was sustained” state “The court ruled Party A materially breached the contract and was relieved of their obligations under the agreement”
Does your decision section have such words as “because” “due to” or “since”? Those words indicate you are stating WHY the court ruled the way they did; that kind of information belongs in the LAW & REASON section not the DECISION section.
You may only use quotations of the law in the LAW & REASON section ONLY!
In the ISSUE section, state the issue that the court that wrote the opinion had to decide— in the form of a question.
Make sure you put the right information in the right section.
The Law section needs to include a summary of the rule of law the appeal’s court applied, not the name of the law.
CASE BRIEF CHECKLIST
Did you put (ONLY) your name on your paper?
Did you LEAVE OFF the name of the case, and our class name?
Did you state the issue(s) in the form of a question?
Did you write in PAST TENSE throughout?
Did you put the headings in all caps? FACTS, ISSUES, DECISION, etc.
Did you spell trial, trail? Or spell statute, statue? (Use spell check, and recheck yourself)
Did you describe only of the facts necessary to understand what happened on appeal?
Did you leave out what happened in the lower courts? (PLEASE DO!)
Do you have all sections included: FACTS, ISSUE(S), DECISION and LAW &REASONING?
Have you stated the Court’s ruling concerning the issue(s) to be decided in a complete sentence with a complete thought.
instead of: The Supreme Court decided that XYZ company won the case.Write: The Supreme Court determined that Texas has jurisdiction over XYZ company.
Did you start writing the Reasoning in the Decision section? Don’t!
Have you used quotation marks properly and only in the LAW section?
Have you included a Business Implication?
Sample Solution
