Digesting cases is a must in the college of law, this is actually regardless if it is being required by

your professor or not. Once cases are assigned, a law student must observe due diligence and
read these cases.
For freshmen law students, you may be wondering how to make case digests or case briefs. Well,
there are a few things to remember and they are:
1. Be aware of the specifics of the case or the syllabus concerned. In one case alone, there
could be multiple topics i.e. Political Law, Remedial Law, Civil Law and there could be as many
sub-topics i.e. for Political Law there could be Police Power and Eminent Domain. Knowing
these can properly guide you with the theme of your digests. But usually, you will not have a
hard time with this because once cases are assigned; your professor would have specified these
in his handouts.
2. Read the full text of the case. And when I say read, dont just breeze through it. Try to
understand it the first time. This will save you time because if you understood it on the first
reading, you wont have to keep going back just to read it all over again. Highlighting important
texts of the case which are related to the topic youre on will help you have a coherent grasp of
the case.
3. Now after reading the case in full, youre now ready to write your case digest. In a formal
case digest, there are five parts which are:

Caption This is just the title of the case. It can be as plain as People vs Juan de la
Cruz or detailed to include the SCRA number, GR number, ponente and the date.

Facts This portion is supposed to answer the Who, What, When, How, Why stuff of
the case.

Issues This is the legal conflict or the legal controversy sought to be resolved by the
Supreme Court.

Ruling This is the decision or jurisprudence laid down by the court.

Concurring/Dissenting Opinions These are not always present in all cases and normally
they do not place any significance to the current ruling being discussed (but they may
serve a significant role in future Supreme Court decisions especially when doctrines are
reversed or totally abandoned). These opinions may also be an additional explanation as
to how certain justices voted, the wisdom behind their votes, and as to how the decision is
reached. Be very wary because some professors would also ask questions pertaining to
these opinions especially when such opinions are adopted as the general rule in some
future cases.

(Ill discuss this part in more detail in an upcoming article).

4. Other things you may want to consider may include: how your professor conducts recitation,
is your professor more of a facts guy or a court ruling guy; either way, you can custom make
your digests in a way that will make you remember the facts and the jurisprudence of the case.
Some students prefer replacing the characters with letters like X and Y but that may not sit
well with other professors especially if they are meticulous with the facts of the case. Click this
for a sample case digest.