Introduction to Reading US Cases for International Students
Welcome! This course will enable you to better read, understand, analyze, and explain US court cases.
The course introduces case reading strategies and shows you how lawyers and judges cite to cases, rely on precedent, and distinguish cases.
When you complete this course you will understand how and why US law students and attorneys read cases. In addition, you will understand how US lawyers and judges “think in terms of cases” to support and negate legal arguments.
This course includes videos, case readings, assignments. and assessments.

Unit 1 Case Law & Parts of a Case
This unit introduces case law and how to recognize the major parts of a US case.
Unit 2 Case Briefs
This unit introduces you to how to create a case brief. As a general rule, if you can’t write a case brief, it means you don’t understand the case – – so let’s learn how to write a case brief!
Unit 3 Strategically Reading Cases
This case builds on your knowledge by walking you through how a US lawyer would read a case for purposes of supporting an appellate level argument.
Unit 4 Introductory Case Signals and Final Assessments
The course ends with what might seem to be fairly obvious – – what do the citations to cases mean? We analyze the introductory case signals to show how US lawyers and judges rely upon cases to build their legal arguments.
Daniel A. Edelson
Instructors
Daniel teaches US law to LLM students and tutors JD students and bar exam candiates online. In addition to teaching, Daniel creates short animated videos explaining fundamental legal concepts. He is admitted to the bars of New York and New Jersey and represents clients in a wide-range of civil litigation matters.
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Course Content
Unit 1 Case Law & Parts of a Case
Unit 2 Case Briefs
Unit 3 Strategically Reading Cases
Unit 4 Introductory Case Signals
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The course helps lawyers to read and understand cases in English, which is a big challenge for civil law jurisdiction lawyers, like myself. Congrats! The content and the teacher are brilliant.