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10 Second Draft 1 (1995-1996)

handle is hein.journals/secnd10 and id is 1 raw text is: From the editors.... You probably notice that this issue of The Second Draft is about twice its usual length. We expanded this issue to allow us to include the many responses we received to our call for comments on the use of IRAC in the first year curriculum. Many thanks to all who contributed. The Spring 1996 issue will be correspondingly shorter. We will forego a substantive theme for that issue and limit the issue to informational items. Please mail, preferably on disk, items for the News, Achievements, and Letters to the Editors sections to Joan Blum at Boston College Law School, 885 Centre Street, Newton, MA 02159-1163 by February 15, 1996. We plan to devote the Fall 1996 issue to summaries of presentations at the 1996 Conference of the Legal Writing Institute. ... Francine Sherman, Jane Gionfriddo, and Joan Blum Boston College Law School The Value of IRAC IRAC is a tool many of us use to help students provide structure to legal analysis. Students use this tool not only in writing objective and persuasive memos and briefs, but also in writing answers to examination questions. The following comments, highlighted by the Point/Counterpoint,' present a wide range of views on the efficacy of this tool. just about every comment sees some danger in using IRAC without flexibility. Beyond that the comments divide roughly into two categories: those that see any standard structural scheme as potentially truncating or skewing legal analysis and those that recognize the value of a standard structure, but may see a need to modify the elements of IRAC to a greater or lesser extent. Res ipsa loquitur! Point/Counterpoint: Use of IRAC-type Formulas-Desirable or Dangerous? Desirable! Fire, Flood, Famine & IRAC? MARY BETH BEAZLEY THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW I confess that I have a hard time seeing how using IRAC could lead to disastrous results. I find that IRAC is almost always a valid way- although not necessarily the only way- to organize legal analysis. Just as you would include certain ingredients when making a cake, so you include certain elements when analyzing a legal issue. The reader must be told what the issue is, what rule is to be applied, how the rule is to be applied, and what conclusion is reached through that application. I just used the passive voice! I could revise it away, but I won't, because I think that IRAC helps keep the focus on the reader by encouraging writers to discuss important elements in the order that is usually most helpful to the reader. I suppose that disaster could result if the student used IRAC improperly, but can't that happen with any suggested method of organization? Maybe the disaster comes when the student thinks that each element can be

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