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My school had a "how to outline" lecture where they recommended essentially "IRAC'ing" every major issue. It went something like this:

Problem: When is a detriment sufficient for consideration?
Rule: It does not matter if a detriment is a benefit to the promisee from an objective standpoint; as long the promisee forbears from something she had the legal right to do, it is a detriment sufficient for consideration.
Example: Hamer v. Sidway: Nephew giving up right to drink and smoke was widely considered a benefit at the time (temperance movement), but it was still a forbearance from exercising a legal right.
Example: K to abstain from heroin hypothetical: What if the promisee forbears from something she had no legal right to do?

I already started my outline, using a more traditional method, but I'm wondering if I should switch gears. On one hand, this method makes the rules less abstract and focuses on application; on the other hand, it seems way too involved and way too likely to result in a 100-page monster.

What to do you think? Were your outlines mostly BLL? How did you fit cases and policy in?

I've never really heard of outlining this way. I certainly didn't do it. IRAC is more of an exam strategy.

Yeah, they didn't actually call it IRAC, but it seems pretty similar to me.

henry flower wrote:Yeah, they didn't actually call it IRAC, but it seems pretty similar to me.

Eh, similar but not the same. IRAC is all about applying the rule to the facts given. My outline was definitely not all BLL though. You will almost certainly need to know the rationale/policy behind the rule in order to apply it to the odd scenarios they come up with.

IRAC outlining does not sound that far off. My outline usually is as follows:

1. Topic (close enough to being the issue worded differently)
A. Rule Statement (and holdings of relevant cases if the class is case centric)
B. Policy for rule on rare occasions or alternate variants of rules if applicable (policy only if it is really important; alternate rules for some classes like crim law where minority/majority/mpc positions are important).
C. Hypos or Explanations: If applicable. I only put this in my outline for harder concepts if I think I might need clarification when studying for the final.
D. Exceptions/etc.


If you parse my outline down it is close enough to IRAC sometimes. However, most rule statements don't have section B and some don't have section C.

That looks like a waste of time. But if that works for you....