Does your answer reflect all of your knowledge of the cause of action, the applicable counterarguments and defenses? Have you told the reader all of the relevant law and facts needed to properly assess the issues? Does your answer indicate you saw the "big picture"?
1. Read the question you're being asked to answer.
2. Read the question from beginning to end without using a pen. Get the big picture first.
3. Go back and read the question again. This time pick up your pen.
4. Read the question a third time.As you do, start making a list on scratch paper of all the issues you see, leaving plenty of blank space between issues.When you see a fact that is relevant to a particular issue, note that fact under the issue in your list.
5. Look at each issue you identified in the above step.
6. Put numbers next to each issue to establish the order in which you will answer the questions. o Answer major issues first.
7. Start writing, putting the most important issue first. Follow IRAC for each issue.
The materials used are from a panel presentation on supplemental bar review assistance programs by Professors Kevin Hopkins, Angela Passalacqua, and Teresa Wallace, at the 1997 Law School Admissions Council Academic Assistance Training Workshop; and a presentation by Professors Ruth Gordon and Frederick P. Rothman, and Sheilah Vance, former Assistant Dean of Academic Support, at a Villanova School of Law study skills workshop on "Successful Exam-Taking Strategies" on November 19, 1998.