Opinion - sustany/dvg GitHub Wiki

With respect to law, �opinion� primarily refers to a judicial opinion, which is a court�s written statement explaining the court�s decision for the case. The opinion usually contains the following elements: name of the judge who wrote the opinion, statement of facts, the legal issues implicated, the court�s rationale and holding, and dicta.

Some common legal phrases that use the term �opinion� include:

• �Majority opinion� is a judicial opinion that is joined by more than half the judges deciding a case.
• �Concurring opinion,� or concurrence, is the separate judicial opinion of an appellate judge who voted with the majority. Concurrences explain the appellate judge�s vote and may discuss parts of the decision in which the appellate judge had a different rationale.
• �Dissenting opinion,� or dissent, is the separate judicial opinion of an appellate judge who disagreed with the majority�s decision explaining the disagreement.
• Unlike most judicial opinions, an �advisory opinion� is a court�s nonbinding statement interpreting the law.
• �Per curiam opinion� is a judicial opinion issued under the name of the deciding appellate court. Thus, unlike most judicial opinions, per curiam opinions do not identify the judge who wrote the opinion.
• �Plurality opinion� is a judicial opinion that received the most votes of any opinion but not enough to be the majority opinion.
• �Opinion evidence,� as outlined in Rule 701 in the Federal Rules of Evidence, is witness testimony based directly on the witness�s own thoughts, beliefs, or inferences.
• �Expert opinion,� as outlined in Rule 702 in the Federal Rules of Evidence and as opposed to opinion evidence, is testimony by an expert witness: a witness who possesses specialized knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education.
• �Opinion work product� refers to material prepared by an attorney in preparation of litigation that reveals the attorney�s opinions, mental impressions, conclusions, or legal theories of the case. Opinion work product, unlike other work product, is almost never discoverable by an adversary.