IRAC and ILAC: how to answer a law problem question

A problem question is not an essay

This is the error that caps more law marks than any gap in legal knowledge. Students write a well-researched discussion of the area of law, and score in the 50s, because they answered a question nobody asked.

An essay asks you to evaluate an area of law. A problem question asks you to advise a party on specific facts. The examiner wants to know what happens to Anna, not what you know about negligence.

The four steps

Run them separately for each distinct legal issue. Do not run one giant IRAC across the whole problem.

• Issue — state the legal question these facts raise, precisely. Not 'is there negligence' but 'does the defendant owe a duty of care to a claimant who suffered purely economic loss'.
• Rule / Law — state the applicable rule with authority. Case name, or section and Act. One or two sentences, not a history of the doctrine.
• Application — apply the rule to these facts. This is the answer. Name the facts explicitly and argue both ways where the position is genuinely arguable.
• Conclusion — state the likely outcome on this issue. Take a position; 'it depends' is not advice.

IRAC or ILAC?

Functionally the same method. ILAC separates the statement of Law into its own labelled step, which forces students to state the rule before applying it — a step that is often skipped when it is folded into 'Rule'.

ILAC is more commonly taught in Australia and New Zealand; IRAC dominates in the UK, US and Canada. Some courses teach MIRAT (adding Material facts and Tentative conclusion) or CIRAC (adding a Conclusion up front).

Use whichever your unit guide names. If it names none, use ILAC — the explicit Law step protects you against the most common structural mistake.

Application: what the marks are actually for

Weak application restates the rule and asserts a result: "Applying Donoghue v Stevenson, the defendant owed a duty of care." That sentence contains no reasoning.

Strong application argues from the facts: "The defendant was the manufacturer and the claimant the ultimate consumer, which places them within the neighbour principle in Donoghue v Stevenson. Unlike the sealed bottle in that case, however, the packaging here was opened by the retailer before sale, raising the possibility of intermediate examination. Whether that breaks the chain depends on whether examination was reasonably to be expected — and given the retailer's contractual obligation to inspect, it likely was."

Notice what that does: it maps the facts onto the elements, identifies where this case differs from the authority, and reasons about the consequence. That is the assessed skill.

Argue both sides, then decide

Where the position is genuinely arguable, put the counter-argument in and answer it. An answer that only advances one side reads as though you did not see the difficulty.

Then conclude. Clients need advice, and examiners are marking your judgement. 'The court could go either way' is not an answer unless you have said which way it more likely goes and why.

Common structural failures

• One IRAC for a problem raising four issues. Each issue gets its own cycle.
• A history of the doctrine in the Rule step. Two sentences and the authority is enough.
• Discussing issues the facts do not raise, to show you revised them. It costs words and signals you cannot identify what matters.
• Citing a case without stating the principle it establishes. The name alone is not an argument.
• Advising on remedies without establishing liability first.
• Ignoring facts that were clearly planted. If the problem tells you the claimant is fourteen, that detail is load-bearing.

Citation still matters here

Problem questions are footnoted like everything else. OSCOLA in the UK, AGLC4 in Australia, the New Zealand Law Style Guide, the McGill Guide in Canada, Bluebook in the US.

Pinpoint your authorities. Citing a fifty-paragraph judgment without a paragraph number tells the marker you may not have read past the headnote.