How to Brief a Legal Case in IRAC Style

Law students should learn the IRAC method to briefing cases and writing exams.

You made the grades. You took the LSAT. You accepted an invitation to the law school of your choice. Now, you have to do it all over again. This time you need to make the law school grades, in order to be invited to join the law firm of your choice. To make the grade, you need to employ the IRAC (Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion) method of case briefing for the next three years of your life. IRAC enables readers to easily follow your legal writing.

Things You'll Need

• Hard copy of a legal case
• Laptop computer or pen and paper

Instructions

The IRAC Method

1. Spot the issue. The issue takes the facts into consideration and asks a question of the court. Take these facts, for example: A doctor uses sedatives outside of a hospital setting on a famous patient, at the request of the patient. The patient dies. The issue would be whether or not the doctor committed murder. You may state the issue in that manner, or you might present the issue in the form of a question: "Did the doctor commit murder?" You should be able to give the reader an answer at the end of the analysis.

2. Find the rule. If you are reading a case in your casebook, the case will provide the rule of law to be used. The rule of law could be derived from a statute, case rule, regulation or common law from prior case holdings. If you are briefing a case, the judge will cite the rule. If you are writing an exam, you must pick the rule that applies to the case. Back to our example: Common law murder occurs when a person acts with malice aforethought, causing the death of a living human being.

3. Analyze. If you are briefing a case, the analysis will follow the rule. After the judge states the rule, he will address the issue and give his reasoning on the issue. He will answer the question of "why" he is ruling the way he is. On an exam, the analysis will make up the bulk of your answer. In order to analyze the rule sufficiently, you need to apply the rule to the facts that were presented in the fact pattern and use it to decide on the issue. In our example, the doctor's act caused the death of a living human being, but it is not clear whether he had malice aforethought when acting. It seems that he was simply doing what he was told.

4. Find the conclusion. The conclusion will be the answer to the question asked in the issue section. After the judge has analyzed the facts and the law, she will state the conclusion or holding. In an exam setting, give the professor your conclusion. You may want to give the answer--like the court would--in the form of a holding. Reference your facts and then give the answer to the question you asked in the issue part of your answer. A conclusion to our example would read: "Because the doctor possessed no malice aforethought, he cannot be guilty of committing murder."

Tips & Warnings

• Read the entire case before starting your brief.

• If you are taking an exam, read the entire fact pattern before doing anything else.

References

• John Jay College of Criminal Justice: How to Brief a Case
• The Paradigm for Predictive Legal Writing: Using "IRAC"
• Lexis Nexis: Homicide