Tourism Law Assignment

Legal Problem Solving Guidelines

on IRAC

A suggested technique for legal problem solving

During the teaching period you will be faced with legal problem solving questions.  These

questions will not ask you to “discuss” or “critique” a theoretical question or essay.  You will

be presented with a factual scenario, a set of circumstances, that describes the interactions

of two or more people that leads to some form of disagreement over the legal relationship(s)

that these facts have created.

It will be your task within the session time limitations to give some kind of advice to one or

more of the people mentioned in the scenario.  This practice in the sessions will have direct

beneficial outcomes to you in preparation for the final examination in MBS502.  The final

examination in this unit will be based entirely on similarly structured questions.

The legal problem solving model that is most commonly used is characterised by the

acronym “IRAC”.  This stands for “Issue”, “Rule of law”, “Application of rule to facts” and

“Conclusion”.

Step 1 – List the legal issues.

The issue in a case is the question of law to be decided by the court.  For example, is

there a valid contract between A and B?  Stating the issue as a question encourages

you to find an answer.  It also acts to keep you focused on answering the question

based on the legal problem and not to become diverted from the issue itself.

Step 2 – State the rule(s) of law applicable to resolving that issue.

This step sets in place the foundation that allows you to more persuasively answer

the question posed in step 1.  In this step you will quote and explain, for example, a

section of a statute or a body of case law developed by the courts over a period of

time.  It will often not be sufficient to simply mention the section number of a statute. 

It will almost always be necessary to use the case law that has been developed to

give meaning to some of the words and phrases used in interpreting that statute. 

Alternatively, if the issue raised is one dealt with exclusively by the common law, then

enough information has to be given about the cases cited to determine if the

circumstances of the precedent are sufficiently similar to the question being dealt

with that the ratio of the precedent applies to this question.  Therefore, mention of the

case name by itself is not sufficient in this part.  You must give a brief statement of

the facts followed by an accurate statement of the principle or rule of law that

resulted from the decision in that case.  There will often be conflicting precedents that

you will have to state and examine.  In this way you will be able to differentiate the

case law to find the precedents that most accurately conform to the facts presented

to you.

Step 3 – Apply the rule(s) of law to the facts presented

This is, arguably, the hardest part of this process.  This is where you have to analyse

the law and determine how it applies to the issues raised and the facts presented in

the scenario.  This is the step that takes the most practice to achieve

competency.

You have cited certain statutes and cases in step 2 for a reason.  You have done so

because the facts presented to you have brought to mind the cases and material you

have been given at lectures or you have read in your textbooks.  You have already

given an outline of the facts of the appropriate precedent cases in step 2, you do not

need to do so again.  What you must do is provide a link between the facts in the

scenario and the cases cited in step 2.

You need to state why the precedent case law that establishes a legal rule or

principle should be applied to the facts presented to you.  You must highlight the

similarities between the precedent case and your fact pattern. 

Alternatively, you should highlight one or more material differences between the

precedent case and the matter before you in order that you can then differentiate the

cases and justify why a precedent should not apply to your particular circumstances.

Step 4 – Conclusion

Do not forget that in Australia we have an adversarial system of solving legal

disputes.  This means that for every legal dispute there are at least two different

points of view.  This means that for any given scenario there may be more than one

possible conclusion.  In this step you have to select one of these possible

conclusions and argue, in a summary form, the case you have prepared in steps 2

and 3 above.

Whatever you do, you must answer the question posed at step 1.