Save time: read the dissent

Ernie shares a piece of advice that would have saved a year of my law school education:

But, here’s a tip for you efficiency seeking law-students that I wish someone had told me about sooner.  If you want to figure out quickly what the point of the majority opinion is read the dissent.  They’ve got to point out quickly what the holding of the court is so that they can get on with the bloviating about how their point is actually better reasoned.  So read the first part of the dissent, skip the bloviating, and then scan the majority opinion to see what the dissent left out, or distorted. [Ernie the Attorney]


Take that one to the bank. Unless of course the case is Bush v. Gore, in which case absolutely nothing about the opinion ( dissenting or otherwise) makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.