Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Getting To Maybe: Rule vs. Counter Rule
Getting To Maybe: Rule vs. Counter Rule
This list of forks is not comprehensive but represents the bulk of issues.
There are often more than one fork within a fact set and often forks within forks.
Different forks are often linked to each other, be sure to notice and discuss
Sometimes forks in law/fact will affect how the fork in fact/law is implicated in a
concurrent or nonconcurrent manner
When I find a fork figure out why there is a fork and what will happen if each
respective path is taken
Be sure to address and analyze potential arguments for the other side of the fork not
chosen (or alternative forks not analyzed because not relevant)
Use an intro paragraph to outline the issues that will be addressed (? is this a waste
of time?
definitions according to statute vs. common law and sometimes statutes are
written to correct the common law definition)
Policy analysis
Cases (applying a fact set/hypo to an existing case(s). discuss the similarities
and differences. fact sets can either be distinguished from a case, applied to a
case, or extended to a case. extending is saying that the rationale used in the
case should also be used in the fact set or be extended to the fact set.
sometimes only one case is relevant for the fact set but sometimes there are
multiple relevant cases.)
Watch for strict rule vs. rationale for the rule
Watch for narrow vs. broad interpretations of a case
Watch for cases where the judges were not clear on their rationale
Watch for multiple rationales
Watch for when multiple cases seem to apply sometimes Im supposed to
pick the one that applies, other times Im supposed to discuss the
implications/reasoning of applying various cases
POLICY QUESTIONS:
CONSIDER THESE THEMES: