Among the typical images of the practice of law, apart from lawyers doing their practice in criminal defense and investigations, is the picture of serious looking gentlemen buried in scrolls and volumes of written data. Law is such a paper-work profession that involves a lot of writing and reading the tedious and laborious details of the many processes involve in the practice. Such lengthy documentation of equally lengthy procedures in the art of law could easily exhaust the passionate individuals who are involved in it. As such, there is a need to have shorter references of such long documents in order to make things simpler when there is only a need to look at certain things at a first glance. This purpose is served by a brief.

In legal terms, a brief could mean several things. It could be a summary of the most important details of a particular long document, which serves as an identity tag for quicker referencing. When searching among piles or volumes of documents, usually it is not practical to read everything through and through, especially when one needs to look only for a particular case or document, thus a brief becomes quite handy for a fast view of documents. Law practitioners bank on briefs to help them look at things quickly.

A brief may also be the abstract of a certain judicial opinion that was published. This is typically prepared by a student of law in fulfillment of certain requirements or assignments for a type of study of law known as case method. Law students learning a particular topic, such as criminal defense, draw up briefs as an exercise in studying the practice. Students bank on such briefs in learning about the rudiments of law.

A brief can also be a written document prepared by an attorney for the particular party he is representing in a lawsuit. The brief would state, first, the issues of that particular lawsuit; second, the specific facts that bring all of the parties involved to court; third, the related laws that could influence the topic of dispute; and fourth, the arguments that would show how the law may apply to the specific facts for the case to be decided in favor of the party. This type of brief may also be drawn up by the party appearing in person, banking on himself or herself to construct the necessary document.

The term brief is also used to refer to the synopsis or rundown of the evidences and the names of the witnesses that are going to be presented in a particular trial. Crucial information is banked on such briefs and are submitted first the court the will hear the case and opposing party.

There are specific types of briefs such as the appellate brief which is written and filed with the court of appeals in order to examine and determine if the decisions of lower courts need to be reversed due to some discrepancy or impropriety that may have happened during the trial process.

A criminal defense brief on the other hand, is a specific type of brief that performs the functions mentioned above with a particular use for criminal cases. Such briefs are collected in a criminal defense brief bank, and are indexed accordingly.