As part of this Legal Environment of Business course you're going to be required to answer some case problems, and the way that those case problems should be answered is using the IRAC method. You've probably never heard of the IRAC method so I wanted to take some time here with this little video to explain what it is so that you'll know what I'm looking for. So basically the IRAC method is a method that attorneys and lawyers use in legal writing and it really gives you a road map for how to answer these case problems. So I'm gonna break it down for you. Let's say we have this question: Juan, who lives in Sacramento, California was seriously injured near his home when an out-of-state car driven by Bill from Seattle, Washington negligently struck him. Juan wished to sue Bill for $200,000, the amount of his injuries, and we want to discuss which court or courts have jurisdiction over this matter. In what court should Juan file his lawsuit. So this is the the case problem that we have and we've got to break it down and answer it using the IRAC method. So the IRAC method has four parts: the issue, the rule, the analysis, and the conclusion. So I'll be looking in your answers to make sure you've got all four of those parts in your answers to the case problems. It's okay if you want to, in your answer, to break it out kind of like it is here, but the first thing you want to make sure you do is state the legal issue presented by the fact scenario and this should be no more than one or two sentences. What I don't want to see in the issue section is just somebody repeating all the facts from from the case problem. I know what the facts from the case problem are, so I don't need to see that all the facts repeated. The legal issue is gonna state what is the legal question that applies to the scenario. In the rule section you're gonna state or define the legal principle that applies to the issue given. So the the rule might be a definition of a legal term that you could take maybe straight out of the textbook or put it in your own words. You know some legal concepts have elements that have to be addressed. For instance if the problem dealt with negligence, you would want to address and state that for the rule of negligence there are four elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages and talk about those. So in the rule you're just stating or explaining the legal principle that applies. In the analysis section you're gonna discuss how does that rule how does that legal principle actually relate to the issue raised in the fact scenario. So if you were talking about negligence you would want to explain why did someone owe a duty or not, did they breach it,or not, was there causation or not, were there damages or not. You'd want to discuss and explain all of that in your analysis section. That should really be the most lengthy part of your answer. Then once you've gone through your analysis it should lead you to a conclusion. Just state your conclusion based on the analysis; again that should be no more than a sentence or two. I'm much more concerned with how thoroughly you analyze the problem and whether you state the correct rule than I am with the conclusion, so spend the bulk of your time on that rule and the analysis and making sure you get those correct. So here's a sample sample answer to the jurisdiction problem that we had. On the issue, I've not given a summary of the facts. I've just stated the the legal question raised: which court or courts have jurisdiction to decide Juan's case. That's really what the issue is, and with most of the case problems it's gonna give you the issue or you should be able to pick it out pretty easily. Then for the rule I've defined what jurisdiction is and have defined the difference between personal jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction. So I've just given those definitions and then in the analysis I've spent some time looking at it from the state court perspective going through the the personal jurisdiction and the subject matter jurisdiction. And then I've taken another paragraph to look at it in the federal courts again looking at the subject matter jurisdiction and the personal jurisdiction and just describing how the facts apply to those concepts. So you see how that analysis is the most lengthy part of the answer and in the analysis is where you're gonna really pull in some of those key facts from the case problem that you think are relevant and explain how the law applies to those facts. Then you see my conclusion there, and obviously for your answer you you would want to to have a more clear conclusion, but what I'm saying here is that I'm not as concerned with with your conclusion. You may reach what I think is the wrong conclusion, but if you've done a good analysis and you've identified the correct rule you're gonna get the bulk of the points. So this just gives you sort of a model that you can go through and follow as you try to answer these case problems. Just use that as a road map and you can break your answers out like I have here that that actually makes it easier for me to grade, but just make sure somewhere you've stated the issue, you've identified the rule - the legal principle or definitions that apply, that you've analyzed it - explained and discussed how the facts apply to that particular law or rule, and then just a sentence or two stating your conclusion so that is the IRAC method. I hope you find that helpful, and good luck with the case problems.