The 'IRAC' Method for Legal Analysis in A-Level Essays

Tutor Luc is a current Bar student at University, having graduated from Cardiff University in Economics before completing the PgDL law conversion degree at the University of Law. With a deep grounding in legal theory, he keeps his teaching firmly rooted in real-world application. Here, he breaks down IRAC, the essential method for structuring legal problem answers, with a full worked example. 

The 'IRAC' Method for Legal Analysis in A-Level Essays

By Luc | Law and Economics Specialist | Sherpa Tutor

Learning and knowing the law is insufficient to secure high marks in legal essays at any level. Whether you intend to practise law or not, a key skill that your academic legal training is developing is cutting through complex fact patterns and identifying the relevant legal issues. Once you have done this, you need to succinctly articulate the legal principles relevant to them, and apply them to the particular situation. This might seem easy at first. However, as you progress, you will be expected to deal with increasingly complicated and saturated fact patterns. Having a method is essential in maintaining a relevant and focused answer.

Your exam board's marking scheme aligns very closely to that of the four elements of IRAC (see below). For example, with AQA, AO1 focuses on knowledge and understanding, AO2 on analysis and AO3 on evaluation.

The answer to this is IRAC, which is the focus of this article.

The Goal

It is my hope that after reading this article, alongside lots of practice, you will be able to effectively answer legal problem questions in a precise and focused way. With time, you will be able to read a fact pattern and immediately identify material (important & relevant) facts. This will also support you in answering multiple choice questions, as you start to focus your analysis on what actually matters.

What is IRAC?

IRAC is a tried and tested method of answering legal problem questions. It stands for:

• Issue

• Rule (law)

• Application (analysis)

• Conclusion

Let's go into each of these elements in more detail...

(1) Issue

What is an issue? It is a problem that is in the question that needs answering. This might be some overarching problem like, 'has Dave committed theft?', or there might be a sub-issue that needs attention to answer the main question such as 'has Dave appropriated property?'.

Ground your analysis of what a relevant issue is in the relevant legal test. This is where your legal knowledge is very valuable. If you can remember the elements of a particular test that need satisfying, you can cut through the irrelevant red herrings that the question draws you to, and get to the relevant point of the question.

For this, you need to think like a lawyer. What would the parties agree meets a test on the facts (so it is not disputed because the answer is given) and what depends on a legal distinction, so would not be agreed.

It's best shown using an example...

Example

Going back to theft, you may know that there are 5 elements to establishing this offence: (1) dishonest, (2) appropriation, (3) of property, (4) belonging to another, (5) with intention to permanently deprive the other of it. Imagine the following problem:

Daniel enters a supermarket and picks up a bottle of wine priced at £20. He removes the £20 price label and replaces it with a £5 label taken from another product. He then places the bottle in his basket and walks towards the checkout. A security guard stops him before he pays.

Advise Daniel as to his liability for theft.

Focus here on one element at a time. We are going to apply IRAC to the appropriation element (as it is likely the most legally involved to consider in this fact pattern), but you will need to do an IRAC paragraph on any other element which is not obvious on the facts. Note that they need not be of equal length, some will need more analysis than others.

Daniel has not yet left the supermarket when he is stopped by the store's security personnel. All 5 elements of theft need to occur for theft to be established. An important part of this case is whether he has 'appropriated' the bottle within the meaning of section 3 of the 1968 Act.

This is the issue: 'has Daniel appropriated the bottle of wine per the definition afforded by section 3 of the Theft Act 1968?'

Can you see here how we would anticipate the prosecution and defence to make different arguments on the matter of appropriation in this case. The defence would foreseeably argue that it was not appropriation as Daniel had not yet left the supermarket. The prosecution, on the other hand, would contend that it is. This is something that the Court would need to decide, which is a reassuring sign that you have identified an issue.

(2) Rule

Now it's time to set out the law. DO NOT put down every vaguely relevant law that you have memorised here. This approach is not impressive and will wrongly direct the examiner to the conclusion that you have failed to identify the relevant principles.

Area of Law

First, you need to identify the correct area of law. Is it contract, tort, land, criminal? This is usually straightforward. Sometimes it can be more complex, for example certain claims cause contract and tort to overlap significantly. An example of this is where we have a claim for a poor standard of building work. Here, a consumer can bring a claim for breach of an implied term to exercise reasonable care and skill (Consumer Rights Act 2015, s.49(1)) AND can bring a claim for the tort of negligence. You would need to separate these out clearly, but this situation is a little esoteric for the present article, so will not be discussed further. Just be aware of this possibility of overlap.

The Correct (Focused) Application

Once you have identified the area of law, the correct way to deal with articulating the law is to explain the principles in an abstract sense, but focusing only on the law that is required to sufficiently answer the legal issue. What does this mean? You need to describe the rule without applying it to the facts first, write it so that it could be copied and pasted to another problem question which raises the same legal issue. Note that you should not be able to copy and paste to any legal issue in the same topic. The law you cite needs to be focused on the relevant problem. Avoid going into too much detail, especially where the detail departs from the specific issue you are attempting to address.

The law you invoke here should give a generic answer to the issue you have identified.

Let's apply this principle with the continuation of the case against Daniel, cited before...

Example (continued)

We are focusing now on 'appropriation', NOT any of the other 5 elements of theft. Discussing those would be irrelevant.

We can start by looking at what the 1968 Act itself says about appropriation. Then, if we can remember some useful common law, we can apply that too.

So a good answer could state something like: 'All five elements of theft need to be present for the crime to be constituted. This includes appropriation, which includes any assumption of the rights of an owner (Theft Act 1968, s.3(1)). The Courts have established that the assumption of just one of the rights of an owner is sufficient to constitute an appropriation (R v Morris). Furthermore, an appropriation can occur even with the owner’s consent (DPP v Gomez).'

If you managed to remember the specific fact pattern of Morris, you may recall that the problem question is similar in that Morris ruled that swapping a label did constitute appropriation. You can state the rule in an even more narrow sense, but this is not essential as you are not expected to remember cases in such detail. For example you could say 'The Courts have ruled that the swapping of labels constitutes an appropriation in R v Morris.' This will make your application much easier as you are not reasoning from first principles!

You will notice that I have made no reference to Daniel and his situation. I only refer to the law in an abstract sense. Such analysis should not feature in the 'rule' part of IRAC, it should be confined to the next section...

(3) Application & Evaluation

You have isolated the issue and set out the law. Now it's time to spell out the application of the law to the particular fact pattern to the examiner. To secure higher marks, you also need to evaluate this application.

You now need to marry up the facts with the law you have set out and properly answer the question posed. Pull the relevant facts and place them alongside the law and explain how you expect the law to apply in the present case.

Note that you are not writing a legal opinion based on the evidence (that is for later in your legal career), so you can take all the facts in the pattern as true (unless otherwise stated). Try to stay as close to the wording of the law and the fact pattern as possible, bending it all to answer the question to your satisfaction. I suggest using hedged language (so not 'he will be found guilty', rather 'he will likely be found guilty'), as you might be wrong or the Court might not agree.

Your evaluation must be able to identify weaknesses in your application of the law.

Example (continued)

I am not going to use the facts in Morris as the answer would be essentially that this was an appropriation because the Court has ruled on such cases before. For the purposes of supporting you to learn this skill, I will develop it from first principles:

'Daniel removed the bottle's original £20 label and replaced it with a £5 label. One of the many rights that the supermarket has over its products is to set their price. Thus, Daniel could be said to be 'taking' this right from the supermarket when he took it upon himself to replace the labels, which is likely to constitute an appropriation.'

Can you see how I mix the law and the facts to create an argument?

An evaluation might look something like:

'Daniel did not, however, reach the checkout or attempt to buy the product for £5. It may be argued, therefore, that no appropriation took place as he did not assume any ownership rights over the bottle, like, for example, taking it home and drinking it. This argument is relatively weak and seems at odds with the established case law on the matter. The Court has emphasised that there is no need to hold all of the ownership rights for there to be an appropriation. Assumption of a single right over the property will suffice.'

Evaluation does not mean that both sides must be equally persuasive. Where there is a realistic alternative argument, identify it and assess its strength. You may ultimately conclude that the counterargument is weak, particularly where it conflicts with established authority.

(4) Conclusion

Okay... phew... we are almost at the end. Time to conclude the paragraph.

The conclusion needs to answer the question posed by the examiner, whilst also closing off that particular issue you have identified. This will get you closer to answering the exam question as a whole. Make sure that your conclusion is consistent with the discussion you have raised in your other sections.

Emily Finch and Stefan Fafinski in Legal Skills (10th Edition) set out the possible answers of a conclusion:

'There are only three possible conclusions: ‘yes, the law is satisfied’, ‘no, the law is not satisfied’, or ‘the law may be satisfied but it is not certain’. This third option might depend upon facts that are not stated in the question or the interpretation given to a particular point of law.'

It follows that you should be comfortable in not being able to give a definitive answer. Sometimes it is appropriate to explain that the law is not certain and as such you cannot be certain as to how a judge would apply the law to the fact pattern you have been given. Though sometimes (as is the case in the example given in this article) there is an obvious conclusion.

Example (continued)

An effective conclusion to this sub-paragraph might be:

'Thus it seems reasonably clear that in swapping the labels, Daniel has in fact appropriated the bottle of wine. This sets out one of the five essential elements of theft under the Theft Act 1968.'

Common Pitfalls

Steer clear of these common mistakes that students make:

• Starting to write an answer immediately without using this model.

• Applying IRAC once per answer. IRAC should be deployed separately for each individual issue that needs addressing (see Contract Law Q&A, James Devenney).

• Waffling: you need to be focused on the relevant legal issue.

• Writing an essay: a problem question is not an essay.

Fear not: following this approach will spare you from many of these pitfalls.

Further Reading

Chapter 15, 'Answering Problem Questions' of Legal Skills (10th Ed.) by Emily Finch and Stefan Fafinski gives an excellent deep dive in to the best approach in answering problem questions.