IRAC Briefing
Content
IRAC--BRIEFING CASES
For this course, use the IRAC method of briefing for your weekly assignments and for your group assignments.
IRAC is:
I: ISSUE: What is the question the court (or you in the weekly assignments) must decide? Sometimes there may be more than one issue.
2: RULE: What is the law that the court cites to decide the case? In your individual weekly assignments (not the group assignment) you must cite a page number in your text and the rule you are citing to answer the chapter question.
3: APPLICATION: This is the application of the rule to the facts in the case.
4: CONCLUSION: What does the court actually decide? For example, does the court rule in favor of the party that filed the suit, or the defending party? In the chapter questions, you must decide who prevails.
Example: Read the Singer v. Raemisch case, Exhibit 1-6, pages 23-25 in your textbook. Here is how that case might be briefed using the IRAC method.
Issue: Can a prison, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict inmates’ speech, when that restriction is reasonably viewed as promoting prison security?
Rule: Prison regulations that restrict inmates' constitutional rights are nevertheless valid if they are reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Page 24. [Notice this is a general statement taken from case law or statutory law, and which would apply to any case that has similar facts.]
Application: The D& D ban “bears a rational relationship” to those interests as it promotes prison security. The evidence supports the conclusions that games such as D& D can mimic the organization of gangs and lead to their development. The prison gang expert testified the game could foster an inmate’s obsession with escaping from a real life, correctional environment, and thereby foster hostility, violence and escape behavior. This can compromise not only the inmate’s rehabilitation and effects of positive programming but also endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution. [This description shows how the general law stated in the Rule applies to the specific situation before the court. This wording is not the only way the Application of the case can be expressed--the answer must relate the "rational relationship" rule to the facts presented in the case.]
Conclusion: The district court's grant of summary judgment was affirmed.