can concern itself with anything other than corporate, artificial persons and the contracts between them.
You can find these online or by asking a librarian at your local law library.Īnother option is to review the example in the Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style, which was prepared by one of the best legal writers of our time, Bryan Garner. The legal manifestation of this is that no government, as well as any law, agency, aspect, court, etc.
Examples of IRACĪ good way to see IRAC (or IFRAC) in action is to review a few well-written motions. For this reason, a poorly organized Memorandum of Law can undermine your credibility with a law clerk and judge. Both judges and law clerks are familiar with IRAC and expect attorneys to use this format unless there are important reasons to deviate. Judicial law clerks usually have strong skills in legal writing and often have background on law review or other legal journals. Usually, a judge’s law clerk will read your Memorandum of Law before the judge. After competing IRAC for Issue #1, you write a new heading and tackle Issue #2 with another IRAC. Then you apply the Rule to the facts of your situation. For example, for Issue #1, your heading might be something like this: “Mary had a duty to act as a reasonable person would and not smoke while filling her car with gas.” You would follow that heading by citing the statutes or cases (i.e. Notice also how each issue/heading in your macro Analysis/Argument section has its own IRAC. IFRAC is the same as IRAC but IFRAC also has a fact section because this is a required section in a Memorandum of Law. Notice how the entire document follows the IFRAC format. Conclusion of Memo (summarize why the court should grant your motion).Conclusion (summary of your argument on this issue).Analysis/Argument (law applied to the facts of your case related to your issue).Issue #1 (summary statement or paragraph).In this outline, we assume you have three issues to address. The framework for your Memorandum of Law in Support of the Motion would be something like the outline below. Under your Analysis/Argument section, you will have headings, and each heading should be followed by you writing in the IRAC format:
IRAC is Your Outline for Individual Issues