Essay Writing: IRAC

Along with tutoring students for the MBE, I also work with students on essay writing. I have been a strong believer for quite some time that essay writing skills are as important as knowledge when it comes to scoring high on this part of the exam. You are already being tested on the law on the MBE; here the graders are testing something else.  And it's a skill that is very difficult to become excellent at in the short time available for preparing for a bar exam. But you can become competent for sure and competence will allow you to score many points.

For bar exam purposes I like IRAC for analyzing legal issues. It's an excellent system for analyzing issues in a short timeframe and there isn't much time to write any individual essay.

Here is what I recommend:

I:  Begin with an issue statement. The issue statement should let the grader know exactly which legal issue you've spotted and intend to address. In other words, you've spotted a problem that you intend to resolve throughout the remainder of your analysis.

R: Then move on to a statement of the rule. This is where all that studying pays off because you want to be able to write a rule statement that accurately reflects the rule you've learned from your outline. It does not need to be a direct quote from the outline, though. I often think that if a student can put into his/her own words the rule without making a mis-statement of the legal principle then that indicates a good understanding. You should only write the rules that you intend to analyze in the next segment of IRAC. Bring to the job only the tools that you'll need.

A: When analyzing, your entire focus should be on connecting the relevant facts to your rule statements. Just as it was important not to add any rules that you wouldn't later analyze, it's equally important not to analyze any rules that you didn't add above. Run through the facts and use both your rules and the facts provided by the examiners in order to draw a likely conclusion to the question you presented in your statement of the issue. Your rules should guide your analysis. Take the rule apart and analyze each individual component of it. You'll eventually put it back together when it's time to conclude.

C:  Once you've analyzed the facts with the rules, you should be able to draw a likely conclusion. That conclusion might be that not enough information has been provided but often a likely conclusion can be drawn. Don't be too definite, though, unless warranted. Legal issues, especially on the bar exam, often have more than one viable side; let the graders know that you believe your analysis has led to a likely correct conclusion but, when warranted, that reasonable people might argue otherwise.