The present article looks into the case method, developed at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1908. Its primary objective was to expose students to the complicated and multifaceted terrain of decision-making processes under conflict in situations or circumstances likely to occur in the practical professional world of business. This case method is now widely used in teaching law, medicine, public administration, sociology, and psychology as a device to familiarize students with the phenomena and practical aspects of a domain by analyzing a particular situation. It also offers theoretical perspectives: abstracting from the factors involved in a particular set of circumstances can lead to the identification of new categories and parameters. In this article the author applies this case method to the didactics of translation since the teaching of translation is a discipline characterized by the fundamental dichotomy of theory and practice and by the resulting controversy over how they relate to each other and which should be given priority.