A case brief distills a court opinion into its essential parts — the point isn't to summarize everything, it's to extract what you'd actually need to discuss the case in class or apply it to a new fact pattern later.
Facts: only the ones that matter to the holding
Include the facts the court actually relied on to reach its decision, not every detail in the opinion. If a fact doesn't affect the legal analysis, it usually doesn't belong in the brief.
Issue, holding, and reasoning
State the precise legal question the court answered, the answer itself, and the court's reasoning connecting the two. This is the core of the brief — everything else supports it.
Don't skip the procedural posture
How the case got to this court (appeal, motion to dismiss, summary judgment) shapes what the court was actually allowed to decide — missing this leads to briefs that misread what the holding actually stands for.
Keep it short enough to actually use
A brief that's as long as the opinion defeats the purpose. The best briefs are short enough to glance at right before a cold call and still capture everything you'd need to answer with.