Monthly Archives: June 2012

Law schools teach IRAC?

I’m reading a book about legal writing that advises lawyers to avoid using the IRAC model for a legal memo:

Many law schools teach IRAC (Issue, Rule of law, Analysis, and Conclusion) as the format for memoranda. (The acronym is not only wrong, it’s also confusing because some schools teach the C in IRAC as Cases.) However, IRAC makes the reader wait until the end of the paper to learn the all-important conclusion. Avoid IRAC and put your conclusion in the opening of the paper.

The assertions here are wrong in several ways:

Many law schools teach IRAC as the format for memoranda.

An initial question: what does the author mean by “format”? The format of a traditional memo is usually this: Heading, Issue Statement, Short Answer, Facts, Discussion, Conclusion. How could IRAC be used for the format? The author probably means “organizational structure,” not format.

Another question: How could IRAC be the organizational structure of a memo—a whole memo? A memo has many parts, some small and formal, with little organizational structure, and others long and analytical, with lots of organizational structure. The author is not as precise as I’d like and probably means this: Many law schools teach IRAC as the organizational structure of the Discussion section of a memo.

Now to my main point. I predict it would be difficult to find even one law school teaching IRAC as the organizational structure for the Discussion section of a memo.

IRAC might be taught as the structure for an exam answer, but not for the Discussion in a memo. Modern legal-writing teachers, with few exceptions, left IRAC behind long ago. If any acronym is used in “many law schools” to teach the organizational structure of the Discussion section of a memo, it’s probably CREAC (Conclusion, Rule, Explanation, Application, Counter-analysis).

By the way, there are many variations on CREAC (like PREACC, CREXAC, SLACCs, TRuPACC, CRuPAW, and more), but they all represent the same core, structural concepts: state your conclusion first, then state and explain the controlling legal principles, then apply the principles to your problem.

In fact, if I’m going to insist on precision and accuracy, CREAC isn’t applied strictly to the Discussion, but to an analysis of a legal issue. So to make the author’s statement accurate, it would need to say this:

Many law schools teach a form of CREAC as the organizational structure for analyzing a legal issue.

Now to some other points. The author also says this:

Some schools teach the C in IRAC as Cases.

My opinion: Unlikely to be true. There’s a misunderstanding here somewhere, because the structure “Issue, Rule, Analysis, Cases” makes no sense.

Avoid IRAC and put your conclusion in the opening of the paper.

With CREAC, that is exactly what you do—put the conclusion first.

But now I must quibble: you put the conclusion at the beginning of an analytical discussion, not at the beginning of the paper. The beginning of the paper (memo?) is usually the Issue Statement. The author isn’t precise and seems to be using “memo” and “paper” interchangeably; the author also ignores the difference between a memo and the analytical discussion that is one part of a memo.

Why did I write this post?

Am I just being snotty and picky? Maybe so, but the author has hit one of my pet peeves: legal-writing experts who don’t teach first-year legal writing, but who criticize or comment ignorantly about teaching first-year legal writing.

This author now joins two other legal-writing experts I know who comment negatively about how legal writing is taught to first-year law students. Yet all three have never taught legal writing to first-year students and all three make generalizations, uninformed assertions, and incorrect statements about the subject.

Venting done.

Whatcha gonna do, 1 space or 2?

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How many spaces after a period, one or two?

I’ve been asked to referee disputes on the subject, been urged to publicize the “right” answer, and been chastised for recommending the “wrong” answer. Lawyers tend to feel strongly about spaces, so I hesitate to weigh in. Let me start by acknowledging there are arguments on both sides.

If you put two spaces after periods, you have several arguments on your side. There’s the long tradition: that’s the way we’ve always done it (at least since the invention of the typewriter). You also have your own training to back you up: that’s the way we were taught (and still are, as I learned when my seventh grader took typing last year, or what is now called “keyboarding”). You might rely on widespread practice: that’s what everyone does (or at least the lawyers you know). Or you might say one space looks bad: it makes the document seem crowded.

If you put one space after periods, you have arguments on your side, too. One space is what the pros do: professionally published texts, like books, magazines, and newspapers mostly use one space after periods. For example, Austin Lawyer uses one space. You could point out that two-space practice is a vestige of the typewriter, with its mono-spaced fonts, and no one uses typewriters or mono-spaced fonts like Courier anymore (at least they shouldn’t). Or you might argue that one space is becoming the modern, standard practice (which it is, although it isn’t catching on quickly in law practice).

With arguments on both sides, I’ve found it difficult to persuade anyone on this issue. I tell my students that while in law school, choose a preference and be consistent with it. Then, in practice, conform to the expectations of your employer.

My own preference? I’m a one-space guy, and here’s why.

First, two-space practice really is a vestige of the typewriter, and I want my word-processed documents to look neat, modern, and professional. I don’t find a one-space document crowded; rather, I find a two-space document “gappy.” What are all those little cavities of white space?

Second, one-space practice really is the trend for professional writing. Search the topic on the Web if you doubt it. It’s just that lawyers are behind. The truth is that in professional writing, we are in the middle of a long, slow transition from two spaces to one space, and it really isn’t worth fighting it.

Third, those who know—the experts—prefer one space:

“One space is the custom of professional typographers and consensus view of typography authorities.” Matthew Butterick, Typography for Lawyers 42 (2010).

“Like most publishers, Chicago advises leaving a single character space, not two spaces, between sentences . . . .” Chicago Manual of Style 60 (15th ed. 2010).

“[T]he single space between sentences is enough to visually separate them, and two spaces creates a disturbing gap. . . . Yes, this is a difficult habit to break, but it must be done.” Robin Williams, The PC Is Not a Typewriter 13–14 (1992).

Fourth, clean-up is easy. As you know, there are plenty of places in abbreviations and citations where you want one space after a period, not two. Making sure you have one space there but two spaces after sentences is a headache, isn’t it? I use one space after sentences, so here’s all I need to do: as part of a final edit, run a search for two spaces and replace them with one. Done.

It’s still too early say two spaces is wrong for law practice since it’s so common in legal writing. But the battle for two spaces is being lost—one space at a time.

Wayne Schiess: 20 years at UT Law

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I have been teaching legal writing here at the University of Texas School of Law for 20 years, from 1992 to 2012.

To commemorate that milestone, I had a photo taken of my 7 colleagues with me. It is now framed and hangs in my office.

Back from left: Kamela, Beth, Sean, Wayne
Front from left: Stacy, Gretchen, Elana, Robin

Beck Center created

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As a result of a generous gift, the University of Texas School of Law’s legal-writing program is now the David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing, and Appellate Advocacy. (David Beck is a well known lawyer and alumnus.) I will become the Director of the Beck Center.

The Center’s primary focus is the required, first-year course in legal research and writing—now entering the third year of an expanded curriculum made possible in part by Mr. Beck’s gift. The Center also includes several other courses: a new course on legal writing for foreign LLM students, upper-division courses (Transactional Drafting, Writing for Litigation, and Advanced Legal Writing), two judicial-clerkship-preparation courses, and the Law School Writing Center. In addition, the Beck Center coordinates interscholastic moot court, and my colleague Gretchen Sween will become Director of Interscholastic Moot Court.