Learning to Use IRAC – The Secret to Strong Grades

Introduction

Most people who study law are bright and intelligent. They want to do well and try their best to achieve the highest grades they can. Why, then, do many students struggle to achieve the marks they deserve? The most likely answer is because they have been given inadequate guidance as to how to demonstrate their knowledge of the law.

The unfortunate reality is that by the time students make it to their undergraduate degrees, universities assume that they know how to write. In most cases, this is not true. The good news is that legal writing does not come down to luck. It can be learnt. Once those skills have been acquired, good grades are much more likely to be achieved.

So, you are most likely wondering what technique can be learned to help you achieve higher grades. The answer, I believe, is the IRAC model. This will help you write strong, well-structured, and detailed answers to all your law essays.

What is IRAC?

Most good essays will follow some form of IRAC structure whereby each paragraph (or each issue if they transcend multiple paragraphs) will follow this model. IRAC stands for ‘issue, rule, apply, conclusion’. Essentially, it is a method of legal analysis that has proven to help develop stronger responses to legal questions. Each step requires you to demonstrate a different skill – each of these skills are crucial to achieving the highest grades. If you use the IRAC method in your essays and you haven’t currently been doing so, your grades should dramatically improve.

The IRAC structure is generally referred to by lecturers for use in problem questions. However, it can and should also be used when writing discuss questions and in legal practice. An example of IRAC in use in a discuss question is at the bottom of this article.

Using IRAC

As noted above, each issue in your essay should follow the IRAC structure. I have seen many students attempt to apply this structure to their entire essay – this does not work as it leaves large sections of the essay extremely descriptive with no real analysis. The idea is to apply IRAC to each paragraph/issue (and sub-paragraphs/issues) as follows:

Issue

Begin the paragraph by stating what the issue is that you intend to cover. Ask yourself what legal question that specific paragraph will address. This should be as specific as possible. For example, “this paragraph will address whether or not there is consideration, which is required for the contract to exist” would be acceptable. However, saying “this paragraph will address whether the claimant will win” would not be.

Rule

Next you need to describe the law or test which applies to the issue at hand. For essay questions, this could also be a secondary source (such as an article or book).

This part of the essay is important because it shows the marker that you have identified the correct legal rules and provides clarity. It also helps to clearly distinguish the rule from the application (outlined below).

Writing Tip: Do not spend too many words merely describing the law (such as writing paragraphs of case law facts). Simply parroting facts will not earn you a first-class mark. Application is where you will receive most of your marks.

Application

This is the most important part of your essay. It is the part that will give you the most marks and should therefore be the longest. It is where you need to apply the rule set out above to the facts of the case or essay question.

Be Critical

The application part of your essay is also where you need to show your critical analysis. This essentially means that you need to break down and study the parts of an assertion or situation, express an opinion or evaluation, and compare evidence to find the truth.

To maximise your marks, you should discuss both sides of an argument. Always ask yourself whether it is possible to counter your argument. If so, a strong essay would deal with that counter argument and analyse why it is wrong (and why your position is better).

Writing Tip: Always consider how strong the argument is that you are referring to. If someone says ”X is true”, but doesn’t say why X is true, you are unlikely to agree with them. If someone says “X is true because of Y and Z”, you have the basis for the understanding. You can then take a look at Y and Z.

Conclusion

The final step is to answer to the issue you outlined above. In other words, you need to now state the result of your analysis and what you think will happen.

Do not be afraid to state in the conclusion that it may not be an absolute position. For example, you might want to use words such as ‘may be able to’ or ‘is likely to be the case’ if you have not been given sufficient information to arrive at a concrete position. In any case, courts generally differ on any given set of facts and different interpretations can be applied. It is therefore quite acceptable to acknowledge this.

Writing Tip: Always think about whether you have answered the question in your conclusion. If you have not answered the question, you are likely to be going down the wrong track (and therefore losing marks!).

An Example of IRAC in an Essay Question

The following paragraph is taken from my dissertation written in third year of my Law LLB Degree. The dissertation received 81% (Upper First Class Honours). I chose the paragraph at random to show how important it is to condition oneself to adopt the IRAC structure for each paragraph written. This does, of course, mean that it is taken out of context. However, we need not worry about the substance here, only the structure.

I have broken the paragraph out into the four limbs of the IRAC structure for ease of reading:

Issue

"The system of responsibility is further imprecise in relation to the curious group of defences made up of duress, necessity and self-defence. The former shall be considered first."

These two sentences explain what the paragraph will deal with. It makes it clear to the marker that I have identified a particular issue.

Rule

"The House of Lords in R v Howe overruled R v Lynch on the basis that an innocent person should be protected. We are given nothing more helpful than this, as no reference was made to the free will theory."

These two sentences describe the case law which is relevant to the issue at hand. Please note that the previous paragraph in the dissertation dealt with R v Lynch and so it was not necessary to discuss the facts of that case again here. If that was not the case, further detail may have been required.

Apply

"The judgement would have been comprehensible had the court held that a person under duress has free will and is therefore responsible. Their argument on the grounds of public interest would then be clear. However, no such argument was placed forward, confusing the law. We must either reject such defences as being inconsistent with free will, or accept them as a justification, providing the ambit to make distinctions on the grounds of morality. Justice is, after all, something that the criminal system strives for. Outside the grounding of free will, justifications are merely a preference. As such, it would then be down to the legislature and judiciary to reject economic coercion and other similar claims. To accept one and reject the other in its current form is nonsensical."

This section of the paragraph applies the case law to my dissertation question. It is also used as an opportunity to show of my critical analysis and original thought. Note how it forms a substantial part of the paragraph because most of the marks are drawn from application (and not merely describing the law).

Conclusion

"It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the law mishandles and applies the system of responsibility against the logic of its own concept. This desperately needs addressing."

Here I provide a brief conclusion of my analysis. The larger section in the dissertation contains an overall conclusion, so I know that less detail is required here. However, it is still important to draw the paragraph to an end.

Final Word

IRAC structure is not a replacement for reading your law materials, attending lectures, and analysing the law. A good law essay is more than good structure. However, the IRAC structure will help you present your findings in the best possible way. It provides the framework for analysing and responding to problem and discuss question alike.