1L prep — skills
IRAC is the skeleton of legal analysis — four steps you'll use in class, on exams, and in legal writing for the rest of your career. It looks simple. The skill is in step three. These three original examples show you exactly how each step works.
The framework
The legal question the facts raise. Phrase it as "whether": Whether the defendant's conduct meets the legal test. Spotting the right issue is half the battle — on exams, most points live here.
The governing legal principle — the test, the elements, the standard. State it cleanly before you touch the facts. If you can't state the rule, you can't apply it.
The analysis: walk each fact through each part of the rule. This is where the points are. Argue both sides — the strongest argument for and the strongest argument against — then explain which wins and why.
Your answer to the issue, following from the analysis. Usually one or two sentences. On close calls, a hedged conclusion ("likely") is honest and fine.
Worked examples
These fact patterns were written for this page — no casebook needed. Read the facts, then watch each IRAC step do its job. Notice how the Application always does the heavy lifting.
Tests: offer, acceptance, the mirror-image rule
Whether Devon's Wednesday reply was an acceptance forming a contract, or a counteroffer that terminated Rosa's offer.
Under the common-law mirror-image rule, an acceptance must match the offer's terms exactly. A response that adds conditions is not an acceptance — it is a counteroffer, which operates as a rejection of the original offer and terminates the offeree's power of acceptance.
Rosa's email was a definite offer: price, subject matter, and a deadline. Devon's Wednesday reply purported to accept but added a new term — inclusion of the commercial grill. That is not a mirror-image acceptance; it is a counteroffer. As a counteroffer, it rejected and terminated Rosa's original offer. Devon's argument: he said "I accept," showing intent to be bound. But intent language cannot save a response that changes the terms — the mirror-image rule looks at the terms, not the label. Once the original offer was terminated Wednesday, Devon's Friday "acceptance" was an offer to buy that Rosa never accepted.
No contract was formed. Devon's Wednesday reply was a counteroffer that killed the original offer, so there was nothing left to accept on Friday.
Tests: negligence elements — duty, breach, causation, damages
Whether Priya's conduct satisfies all four elements of negligence: duty, breach, causation, and damages.
Negligence requires (1) a duty of reasonable care, (2) breach of that duty, (3) causation (both cause in fact and proximate cause), and (4) damages. The standard of care is what a reasonably prudent person would do under the circumstances.
Duty: Everyone owes a duty of reasonable care to foreseeable pedestrians on a shared sidewalk — easily satisfied. Breach: A reasonably prudent person does not skateboard at high speed through a crowded sidewalk, especially one posted against it. Priya fell below the standard of care. Her "he should have watched" argument goes to Marcus's possible comparative fault, not to whether she breached. Causation: But for Priya's speeding, the collision would not have occurred (cause in fact), and a pedestrian injury is exactly the foreseeable result of reckless sidewalk skateboarding (proximate cause). Damages: Marcus's broken wrist is actual, compensable harm.
Priya is liable for negligence. All four elements are met; Marcus's inattention, at most, reduces his recovery under comparative negligence rather than excusing Priya.
Tests: Terry stops — reasonable suspicion
Whether the officer's stop and frisk was lawful under the Fourth Amendment without probable cause.
Under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), an officer may briefly stop a person on reasonable suspicion — specific, articulable facts suggesting criminal activity — and may conduct a limited pat-down for weapons upon reasonable suspicion the person is armed and dangerous. Probable cause is not required.
The officer had more than a hunch: ten minutes of pacing and peering into a closed jewelry store at 2 a.m., plus vague and contradictory answers when questioned — specific, articulable facts suggesting a burglary was being cased. That supports the stop. The frisk is justified if the officer reasonably suspected Andre was armed and dangerous; casing a jewelry store at night, combined with evasive answers, can support that suspicion, though Andre's strongest counterargument is that nothing specifically suggested a weapon as opposed to burglary tools. Courts generally sustain the frisk where the suspected crime (like burglary of a jewelry store) is one commonly involving weapons.
The stop was lawful, and the frisk was likely lawful. The gun is probably admissible — though Andre's best argument attacks the "armed and dangerous" basis for the pat-down specifically.
Avoid these
Ready to practice? The foundations question bank trains issue-spotting at a gentle level, and the case-briefing guide shows you where IRAC material comes from in the first place.