If you follow news coverage of these and other cases, you may want to read the Supreme Court decisions for yourself to fully understand what was decided, why and how. But when you read a Supreme Court case for the first time, the legal language, unique formatting and structure can be daunting, like looking at a giant rock face and not having any clue about how you climb to the top.
I have taught law to undergraduates for the past 12 years, so I am sympathetic to the nonlawyer’s plight. Here are some techniques I teach my students to help them break a Supreme Court opinion into digestible parts. They should help you begin to understand what was decided, why and how in the important cases being considered by the court this term.
If you follow news coverage of these and other cases, you may want to read the Supreme Court decisions for yourself to fully understand what was decided, why and how. But when you read a Supreme Court case for the first time, the legal language, unique formatting and structure can be daunting, like looking at a giant rock face and not having any clue about how you climb to the top.
I have taught law to undergraduates for the past 12 years, so I am sympathetic to the nonlawyer’s plight. Here are some techniques I teach my students to help them break a Supreme Court opinion into digestible parts. They should help you begin to understand what was decided, why and how in the important cases being considered by the court this term.
First, make sure you know the names of the parties – meaning the different people, companies or organizations involved – in the case. This may require some quick research. For instance, a search for “abortion pill case” results in this article. When I skim the article, I learn that the Food and Drug Administration is being sued by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, so these are the parties in the case.