6.3 USING LANGUAGE PRECISELYWHENANALOGIZING AND DISTINGUISHINGCASES
Analogizing and distinguishing relevant authority cases can be a vital part of the application sections of your argument. By showing the reader how a case is like or unlike a relevant case, a writer can convince the reader to apply the rule in a way that will achieve the desired result.
Note that your application section should not begin with the analogy or distinction. Instead, begin with an explicit assertion about how the law applies to the facts (generally, “phrase-that-pays equals or does not equal case facts”). Use the relevant cases as needed to support that assertion. Do not begin your application this way:
BAD EXAMPLE OF BEGINNING OF RULE APPLICATION This case is like McGuffin. Instead, begin by telling the reader how the law applies to the facts: 
GOOD EXAMPLE OF BEGINNING OF RULE APPLICATION Mr. Pillion had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Like the defendant in McGuffin,... Your case analogies and distinctions will be most effective if they are precise. Do not analogize a specific fact to a whole case: 
BAD EXAMPLES Like Robinson, the Defendant here had committed an arrestable offense. Like the situation in Robinson, the Defendant here had committed an arrestable offense. Like in Robinson, the Defendant here had committed an arrestable offense.
This comparison is inapt because one defendant, by definition, cannot be “like” a whole case. Make your analogy or distinction specific. Compare defendants to defendants, and other actors and things to their specific counterparts in the authority case. These illustrations make the comparisons explicit:
GOOD EXAMPLES In the present case, Respondents, like the defendants in Lewis and Hicks, were present on property for the sole purpose of conducting criminal business.
Like the officer in Lewis, Officer Thielen observed only activities that were a necessary part of Respondents’ illegal business. During the entire time Officer Thielen watched the apartment occupants, the occupants did nothing but divide and package cocaine. See Record at E-2, G-14.
Unlike the car at issue in Rakas, an apartment is a private dwelling not normally open to the public view.
These examples also provide details from the client’s case that make the analogies vivid. The writer must do more than make the bare statement that “this case is like (or unlike) McGuffin” if the reader is to see the connection or the disconnection between the two cases. In the next example, the writer takes care to provide the details that will clarify the distinctions between the two cases:
GOOD EXAMPLE
Respondents did not demonstrate an expectation of privacy. When they bagged cocaine near the window of a basement apartment, they could not have reasonably expected that others would not see their actions. Unlike the defendant in Katz, who argued that he sought privacy by closing the door to his phone booth, Respondents introduced no evidence of conduct that demonstrated an intent to keep their activities private. Though the blinds were drawn, there is no indication that Respondents drew them. See Record at E-2, E-10. On the night in question, Respondents were present in a first-floor apartment that had several windows at ground level. Record G-26. The windows faced a public area that apartment residents and nonresidents frequented. Record G-69, G-70. As darkness fell in early evening, Respondents sat illuminated under a chandelier light at a table directly in front of one of these windows. Record G-13. Only a pane of glass and a set of blinds that featured a series of laths, Record G-50, separated Respondents from the adjacent common area. On the night in question, the blinds, though drawn, had a gap in them; the gap was large enough for a citizen who passed by and an officer who stood a foot or more from the window to view easily the entire illuminated interior scene. Record G-13.
Individuals in Respondents’ position would have known and expected that a passerby could look through the gaps in the blinds and see into the illuminated kitchen. Thus, Respondents could not have actually expected that their illegal activities would go unnoticed.
This application is somewhat long, but the details are necessary for the reader to understand how the law applies to the facts. Although analogies and distinctions are not always needed, make sure that when you do include them, you focus them on the specific people or things that you want to compare. Second, make sure that you provide the details that allow the reader to understand both the comparison and the application of law to facts.