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A Brief Guide to IRAC

IRAC -- an acronym for  Issue ,  Rule ,  Application ,  Conclusion  -- is a simple organizational model for legal writing. It is particularly useful for organizing the small-scale analysis of an individual issue. A very basic analysis based upon the IRAC model might look something like this:

    Force is the final element of the offense.  The defendant must have used force or the threat of force in order to be convicted of robbery.  [Citation.]  Smith's statement that Jones would regret it if he denied Smith's demand for the money was an implicit threat of force.  Smith's actions therefore meet the force requirement. 

Of course, an issue involving conflicting or ambiguous legal rules (or rules that require illustrations or examples) would require a longer discussion of the rules. One involving complicated facts or conflicting inferences that can be drawn from the facts would require more than one sentence of application. An IRAC need not even fit within a single paragraph. However, if it is more than a few paragraphs long, that may be a sign that the issue could be addressed more effectively by dividing it into smaller parts and considering each part separately.

IRAC can also be useful as a model for larger-scale organization. For example, the analysis of a broad legal issue ordinarily would begin by identifying the issue, and then stating one or more applicable legal rules. Those rules would indicate how the issue can be divided into narrower parts, and how the parts relate logically to one another. Then, the writer would address each of those parts separately, before reaching an ultimate conclusion as to the broad issue. IRAC therefore describes the organization used for the entire large-scale analysis as well as for each of the individual issues.

More information about IRAC: