Read Law Right

Having started with an encouragement to read case law, we now return to explore some tactics for efficient reading of law reports.

During your law studies you will be required to read many law reports. Having a reading strategy and knowing what you are looking for in a law report are the two key elements to your success here.

A shorter case may take just one 30-minute session, but I’ve broken this down to illustrate how you might tackle a longer case that takes more than one session.

Reading session 1 – getting the basics:

• Give yourself an arbitrary but fixed amount of time to skim the judgment – say 15 or 30 minutes.
• Note the names of the parties and who is the Claimant and Respondent or Appellant and Respondent.
• Is it a first instance case or appeal.
• Identify whether the document you are engaging with is an official law report (e.g. found on Westlaw or Lexis) or a simple transcript of the judgment (e.g. found on Bailii).
• If it is a law report, read the headnote summary and note the brief facts and outcome. Then identify where the judgment proper starts. This could be several pages in, after a list of case law mentioned within the judgment and sometimes after a summary of the parties’ submissions.
• Identify the number and names of the judges – typically one if High Court, three if Court of Appeal, five if Supreme Court (sometimes 7, 9 or 11 though).
• Skim the first and last few paragraphs of each judge’s judgment. Identify who has won and by what margin, and if relevant which judges were in the majority and minority.
• If there is more than one judgment, identify the main majority judgment – typically the longest. Focus on this one. Use it to make your core notes.
• Skim that judgment and try to identify its main sections – note the facts of the case and the legal question(s), and record where the judge addresses those questions and gives their reasons for their decision on those questions.

Reading session 2 – what you are looking for/what to make a note of:

• If you found multiple legal questions in your first read, try to identify the question(s) of particular interest to you. For example, if studying mens rea, find the legal question on intent, recklessness, knowledge etc. Try to identify if you can ignore the other legal questions – they may be totally irrelevant to your studies right now.
• Summarise the gist of the (relevant) legal question(s). Note the paragraph/page numbers in case you need to make a footnote later.
• Summarise what the judge said in their reasoning about that legal question. What was it that persuaded the judge? Again, note the paragraph/page number.
• Note how that answer to the legal question was applied to the facts of the case. Again, note the para/page number.
• Note the final outcome on that point with the page or para number again.
• Be aware that the party that wins that point may or may not be the party that wins the overall case. See if you can ascertain the influence that point had on the final outcome.

Reading session 3 – how to improve your notes further, if there is a dissenting judgment:

• Identify the main dissenting judgment. If there is more than one go for the longest of the dissents.
• You can ignore the sections where the dissenting judge rehearses the facts of the case.
• Identify where the judge engages with the legal question of relevance.
• Note the judge’s reasoning on that legal point.
• These further notes will help you demonstrate critical analysis as you now have two sides of the argument to compare and contrast.

So for example, in the case of  Shaw v DPP [1962] AC 220, you would probably focus your attention first on Viscount Simonds’ majority judgment, then Lord Reid’s dissent.

You may find some cases where it isn’t obvious which judgment you should read. Some of the very important public law cases, for example, have multiple judgments of similar length. You can still use the technique above but you will have to arbitrarily choose which judgment to focus on first. If you can identify the most senior judge in the case, you might go for their judgment first – e.g. the Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice or President of the Supreme Court.

These techniques will potentially save you a lot of time, while still identifying the most salient parts of the judgment. If you make notes like this you will be in a great position for seminar and assignment questions on that topic.