Tips to First-Year Law Students: How to Ace Problem/Scenario-Type Questions

Article written by Chloe Ng, a Final Year Law Undergraduate.

Law students probably know that there are predominantly two types of questions in law coursework and exams, which are essay type and problem type. As a first-year law student, you might find it difficult to tackle problem type questions which you rarely came across prior. Do not worry, hopefully you will find the following tips helpful!

IRAC – Issue

I cannot stress enough how important structure is and it is a solid fact that this is something that students need to be trained in law school, on top of the legal knowledge and case law. Therefore, it is often suggested for students to follow the “IRAC” structure when attempting problem type questions. By IRAC, it refers to issue, rules, application and conclusion respectively. This means, the very first step is to identify the legal issue(s) in the question. My tip to you is spend a few minutes to read the question thoroughly which allows you to understand it better so that you can identify the corresponding legal issues correctly. It is possible that there is more than one legal issue in the same question, thus do give the question a read before attempting your answer.

IRAC – Rules

After identifying the legal issue(s) of the question, the second step is to cite the legal rules in your answer. The aim of this is to determine what the court uses to make its decision when managing cases with similar facts. You might want to use some case law and statutes here that help establish the relevant legal rules. Before writing your answer, I would suggest you list out all the possible legislations and authorities that you might find helpful for your work on a piece of paper. Then carefully review and confirm if there are legal sources that you have missed and overlooked. In this sense, you can ensure you have all the applicable cases and legislation included in your work, knowing that there are many landmark cases for each area.

IRAC – Application

The penultimate step is to apply the law to the facts of the problem. This is also the section where you should implant your arguments and rebuttals. With the legal rules established above, it should not be difficult for you to apply them in your answer. It is advised to highlight the facts in the question that you find similar to those of the cases and avoid repeating whole chunks of the facts in your answer. You are expected to show your understanding of the law in your answer and thus the significance of explanation and elaboration creep in. Try to make your answer as unambiguous as possible so your audience can follow better.

IRAC – Conclusion

Last but not least, the conclusion. It is the final part of your answer where you sum up the identified legal issue(s), whether the claim is likely to be successful or not, etc. It is worth noting that you should not add anything additional that is not mentioned in the three sections prior. You should also proofread the entire piece of your work in order to make sure you are not going off topic.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, the IRAC structure should be followed when you tackle problem-based legal questions. Hopefully the tips above are handy for you!