Interactive Legal Research & Writing Lessons: Common Law Research - Critically Reading Caselaw (Williams)
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Description
In this three-lesson module, you will gain a thorough understanding of how to critically read unredacted case law to most effectively research and write about a client’s problem. You will learn the three phases of critical reading and have each step modeled using a hypothetical.
Lesson One first describes the difference between reading casebooks and reading unredacted opinions. It then explains the three phases of critical reading and how to manage your time when reading critically.
After receiving a basic understanding of critical reading, Lesson Two presents a hypothetical legal research assignment by introducing the client facts, the issue, and a case on point that will help you resolve the issue. It then walks you through the first two steps of critical reading using that case. It models the pre-reading activities of finding your purpose, hypothesizing, and getting oriented to the case. Then, as we read each section of the case together, it models the active reading activities such as how to annotate instead of highlight, how to rhetorically analyze the opinion, and how to identify trigger facts.
Finally, in Lesson Three, it models how to do post-reading activities that will help you resolve your client’s problem quickly and efficiently without having to constantly re-read the case. Using the same hypothetical and case you read in Lesson Two, it shows you how to summarize a case’s usefulness, how to complete a chart of cases in different formats, how to draft a case explanation, and how to start an outline of your memo or motion.
Taken together, this module is unique because instead of simply telling you to read cases to solve a client problem and giving a few examples of how to use cases after reading, it demonstrates each small step with snapshots of the case and charts along the way. It lets you journey through an expert reader’s thought process while they read to show rather than tell you how the process works. This empowers you to quickly simulate the process in your own reading.
Lesson One first describes the difference between reading casebooks and reading unredacted opinions. It then explains the three phases of critical reading and how to manage your time when reading critically.
After receiving a basic understanding of critical reading, Lesson Two presents a hypothetical legal research assignment by introducing the client facts, the issue, and a case on point that will help you resolve the issue. It then walks you through the first two steps of critical reading using that case. It models the pre-reading activities of finding your purpose, hypothesizing, and getting oriented to the case. Then, as we read each section of the case together, it models the active reading activities such as how to annotate instead of highlight, how to rhetorically analyze the opinion, and how to identify trigger facts.
Finally, in Lesson Three, it models how to do post-reading activities that will help you resolve your client’s problem quickly and efficiently without having to constantly re-read the case. Using the same hypothetical and case you read in Lesson Two, it shows you how to summarize a case’s usefulness, how to complete a chart of cases in different formats, how to draft a case explanation, and how to start an outline of your memo or motion.
Taken together, this module is unique because instead of simply telling you to read cases to solve a client problem and giving a few examples of how to use cases after reading, it demonstrates each small step with snapshots of the case and charts along the way. It lets you journey through an expert reader’s thought process while they read to show rather than tell you how the process works. This empowers you to quickly simulate the process in your own reading.