From the standpoint of clinical-legal methodology, this paper tries to investigate a useful but very ambiguous category: the case theory. By this expression, scholars mean the detailed and consistent story that tells how facts happen and why. Both lawyers and clients use it to build a legal strategy for defending the latter ones in trials. Under this premise, the author tries to in-vestigate some dilemmas, starting from the differences between ‘fact’, ‘case’, and ‘fattispecie’. The chosen perspective is hermeneutic since facts are constructed and re-constructed in a so-cio-cultural and legal context where lawyers, clients, witnesses, judges, and jury - each one playing their own part - try to build, interpret, argue and value a case theory.
Keywords: Clinical-legal education, Case theory, Facts, Context, Hermeneutics