COURT OPINIONS

Read a court opinion with AI and check every passage it cites

A judicial opinion mixes several things in one long text: the procedural history, the facts the court accepted, the issues, the holding, the reasoning, and sometimes concurring or dissenting opinions. Put the opinion in a Search+ workspace, ask for each of those parts in plain language, and open the cited passage to read the court's own words before you rely on a summary.

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Last updated October 2026

How to read a court opinion with Search+

Upload the opinion and the decisions it builds on
Add the opinion, whether a reporter PDF or a scanned slip opinion, along with the lower court decision or the key precedents if you have them, up to 10 files at a time. An appellate opinion often makes most sense next to the ruling it reviews.
Set your reading purpose in Workspace Context
Write a standing instruction such as "I am researching how courts treat implied consent; separate holdings from dicta and note any dissent." Search+ applies it to every question in the workspace.
Ask part by part and open the passages
Ask for the procedural posture, then the issues, then the holding. Each answer carries inline citations to the supporting excerpt, with a page reference when the opinion provides one, so you can read the reasoning in context.

Questions people ask about a court opinion

Posture

How did this case reach this court, and what was the decision below?

Issues

What questions did the court say it had to decide?

Holding

What did the court hold on each issue, and did it affirm, reverse or remand?

Standard of review

What standard of review did the court apply, and where does it say so?

Dissent

Is there a dissent or concurrence, and on which point does it part ways with the majority?

Authorities

Which earlier cases does the majority rely on most heavily?

What reading a court opinion well involves

Majority, concurrence and dissent are different texts

Only the majority opinion states the court's decision. Concurrences agree with the result for different reasons, and dissents disagree. Ask which part of the document an answer came from.

Holding versus dicta

Statements needed to decide the case carry more weight than remarks made along the way. Readers often separate the two before relying on a quotation.

Headnotes are not the opinion

Published versions may include summaries and headnotes written by an editor. They are aids, not the court's words, so check the opinion text itself.

Weight depends on the court and the place

Whether an opinion binds another court depends on the court that issued it and the jurisdiction. That analysis is for a lawyer, not a reading tool.

Older and scanned decisions

Archived opinions are often scans of printed pages. Search+ reads them with OCR, so check the cited passage against the original when a page is faint or marked up.

Passages you can open

Answers cite the excerpt they rely on and include a page reference when the opinion provides one. Search+ does not invent page numbers that are not there.

The usual parts of an opinion and a question for each

Part of the opinion	What it usually covers	A question to ask Search+
Caption and syllabus	Parties, court, docket, date	Which court issued this opinion and when?
Procedural history	How the case got here	What did the trial court decide?
Facts	The facts the court accepted	Which facts did the court treat as decisive?
Issues	The questions presented	What issues did the court frame?
Analysis	Rules, precedents and their application	How did the court apply the rule to these facts?
Disposition	Affirmed, reversed, remanded	What did the court order at the end?
Separate opinions	Concurrences and dissents	What is the main argument of the dissent?

What is a court opinion?

A court opinion is the written statement in which a court explains its decision in a case, usually setting out the facts, the issues, the applicable rules, the court's reasoning and the result.

An order or judgment states the result without the full explanation. A case brief or case summary is someone's later condensation of an opinion, not the opinion itself.

Court opinion questions

Can Search+ find the holding in a long opinion?

Ask what the court held on each issue. The answer quotes the operative language with a citation, so you can read the surrounding paragraphs and confirm it is the holding rather than a passing remark.

Will it keep the majority separate from the dissent?

Ask about them separately, for example "What does the dissent argue?" and "How does the majority respond?" Each answer cites the passages it used, so you can see which opinion they came from.

Can I read an appellate opinion together with the decision below?

Yes, if both are uploaded to the same workspace. Ask how the appellate court treated the lower court's reasoning and the answer cites both documents.

Does it list the cases the court relied on?

Ask which precedents the majority relies on and for what proposition. The answer cites the passages where each case is discussed.

Is this legal advice or legal research I can rely on?

It is not legal advice. Search+ helps you find and read what an opinion says. Whether the case is still good law, or binds a court in your matter, needs checking with proper legal research tools and a lawyer.

Do answers ever get things wrong?

They can. AI answers may be incomplete or misread a passage, which is why every answer links to the excerpt behind it. Read the cited text before quoting the court.

Court opinion pages

Cited precedents

The cases an opinion relies on

The holding

What the court actually decided

Legal reasoning

How the court got to its decision

Themes across court opinions

Patterns in how courts decide an issue

Legal briefs

The arguments a court is asked to accept

Deposition transcripts