Legal Analysis: CREAC vs. IRAC

My whole 1L year, I heard nothing but IRAC so that's what I did. It's how I briefed my cases and how I tackled my essay responses on my finals and it worked just fine for me. But then my 2L year I had a professor explain to us at the beginning of the year that he preferred CREAC so that's what we practiced all semester so we'd be ready for his final. He went to Syracuse and apparently the New York Bar prefers CREAC and that's where he got this from. So head's up NY students— this post will be helpful! 

Related: An example of IRAC

Basically what CREAC is Conclusion, Rule, Explanation of rule, Analysis, and Conclusion. The best way to explain how to use CREAC is to just show you an example. Just like with IRAC, you can use this method for both briefing cases to be prepared for class and for answering essay questions on your tests. FYI, what I'm going to do is a very watered down and simple answer just because no one wants to read a full on answer (they usually can take up a few pages). 

Related: How to tackle practice essays

Hypothetical

Paul sues Dan, saying that Dan was negligent. Paul works for Dan as a painter and one day Paul fell off of the ladder. Paul claims Dan knew that the ladder was in bad shape and about to break at any moment, but still let Paul use it. Is Dan liable to Paul?

Conclusion

Because Dan had a duty to Paul, Dan breached his duty to Paul, Dan's breach of duty caused Paul's harm, and Paul has actual damages from the harm, Dan is liable for his negligence against Paul.

Rule

Usually the R and E can be combined into one paragraph. 

To be held liable for negligence, a party must have breached his duty. 

Explanation of rule

There are four elements to negligence: duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages (and then explain what each of these are).

Analysis 

Pro tip: spend the majority of your time on the analysis! It's where most of your points will come from so try to make it your longest section.

Dan employed Paul, and Paul was within the scope of his employment when he fell, so Dan had a duty as Paul's employer to warn Paul of dangers that he knew about. Dan had commented to his secretary the day before Paul's accident that he had noticed that the ladder had some cracks in the side and some screws loose, but he was too lazy to replace it. When Dan knew that the ladder was faulty but still allowed Paul to use it while painting houses, Dan breached his duty to Paul to warn Paul of any danger that he knew about on the job. Paul's accident was a result of Dan's negligence; if Dan had warned Paul, no one would have been hurt. Paul did nothing wrong here and was only hurt because of Dan's failure to warn. Paul has a $8,000 hospital bill from his broken leg that resulted from falling off the ladder. Because all four of the elements of negligence have been met here, Dan was negligent.

Conclusion

Dan had a duty to Paul, which he breached when he let Paul use a ladder that he knew wasn't in working condition. Because Dan breached his duty to Paul and therefore was the cause of Paul's injury, he was negligent and is liable for Paul's harm.

Other tips

In your CREAC, the Conclusions are the least important and can be the shortest. Just make sure that your Conclusion isn't half-empty. A lot of people will lose points because they'll just have a conclusion that says Dan is liable. A good tip to keep you from falling into this trap is use the word because. Using because will help make sure that you're giving a complete answer. 

When it comes to the Rule and Explanation part, write as much as you can remember about the rule. Are there elements or factors to consider? Write those. Is there a majority and a minority rule? Add that. Same for if there is a common law rule and a statutory rule. Or if there's a traditional rule and a modern rule. Sometimes there's even an English rule and an American rule. Another common thing that almost all rules have are exceptions, so make sure you mention those as well.

For the analysis, make sure that every single thing you put in the R and E part are talked about here again. If there's three exceptions but none of them apply, don't just skip these! That's how you can end up losing points to your classmates. A simple sentence or two reiterating that there are exceptions and quickly explaining why each don't apply here can get you major points! Another thing, you might notice that I used a lot of names and not a lot of pronouns. This is because you want to make it super clear to your professor who you're talking about. If I had accidentally somehow made it seem like Paul was the one who had a duty to Dan, this obviously would've been wrong and could've been counted against me. In a final, you'll most likely be strapped for time. A lot of professors understand this so they're totally okay with you using P for Paul or D for Dan if you just start out by saying Paul (P) so that they can know your code. You can even use it for more than just names and say negligence (neg) the first time and neg every other time after that.

If your fact pattern is more complex, then your CREAC will be a little different. If it's 3 different employees all suing Dan for 3 different reasons, then each one of these cases will get its own CREAC. But if Dan did multiple things that made him liable to Paul, besides just not warning him about the faulty ladder, then you also could do C (for overall), REA (for first bad thing Dan did), REA (for second bad thing Dan did), REA (for third bad thing Dan did), C (for all 3). 

You don't always have to make each letter a separate paragraph. So don't worry about squishing a rule, explanation, and analysis all together in one paragraph. If it helps your reader (professor) follow your arguments better, this is totally okay! Good luck out there my little 1L's!!

My First Day of Law School

"Wish me luck, Bruiser. This is my first class as a serious law student."

Originally, I had planned to wake up at 7 and finish my briefs for Torts, but I couldn't sleep last night and ended up letting myself sleep in until 9 because my first class on Mondays and Wednesdays doesn't start until 10. I have an hour and a half lunch so I just decided to come home to eat and finish up. I know eventually I won't be coming home for my lunch break because that'll add up in gas and I can utilize that time for reading when those start piling up. And to save money on paying for a locker, I plan to just keep my day's supply of books in my car and rung out and switch what I need into my backpack since I have plenty of time between classes.

What I Wore

For lack of a better explanation, I'd say a good outfit to wear is something that you'd wear meeting up with your friends for day drinking. Look nice, but don't worry about having to dress up too much or be formal or business-y. I think you might describe this as "snappy casual," if not a notch below that. I even noticed one girl wearing sweatpants and a messy bun, and I'm just going to assume that she's a 3L. Idk though, because according to Pinterest, most other schools take their clothes a little more seriously and business casual is the case with lots o' blazers and some pencil skirts thrown in for fun. Although, all of those posts makes me wonder if these people actually went to law school or if this is just what they assume law students dress like, and if they did go to law school then was it recently or has the typical student outfit shifted towards more casual in the past 8 years? Who knows. 

First Class: Contracts

I rushed to get to class a little early just in case the whole Legally Blonde assign-yourself-a-seat thing happened; however, when I walked into my classroom, none of my section was in there and I started to panic. I walked out and checked that I had written down room 104, walked back into room 104 and like a total first year stood there awkwardly looking for anyone I knew, and then in full-freakout mode I text the one girl whose number I got during orientation. Yep, we were moved to room 106 last week. I rushed over across the hall and found a seat right beside her in the most perfect seat: right in the center of the entire classroom. Turns out I was right in my worrying and we had assigned ourselves to that seat for the rest of the semester so I'm glad I sat where I did. 

Then we went over the syllabus and dived into the readings. My professor used the socratic method, choosing a student per case to go over it with. When one student said that he wasn't sure of the rule of the case, my professor asked us what we thought it was. The next student cited some theory that was mentioned in the text before the case, but really wasn't the rule of the case. I raised my hand and stated the rule and got an "exactly" from my professor. Still so proud of myself like oh hot damn I'm 2/2 in answering questions correctly so far so I'll take it. I was also proud of myself that everything we touched over in class was already highlighted or somehow noted in my book, so at least I'm somewhat on the right track. 

Second Class: Torts

So this class didn't have assigned seating, which is kinda disappointing because again I scoped out the perfect seat and now it's not reserved for me. My Torts professor is super anti-electronics, so I spend the whole class furiously jotting down notes while my professor talked.

Related: How I take notes

A poor girl that was the second student chosen to talk in my Contracts class was the first student chosen to talk about a case in this class. When we saw her stand up again we all felt bad for her, but the students closest to her whispered some encouragement. That's what I like about this school so far— it's more friendly than competitive and the professors seem pretty chill.

Luckily, I don't have any readings for my 3 classes tomorrow, so I'm enjoying a celebratory margarita and finishing The Paper Chase. Maybe it's because I'm also taking Contracts right now, but I like this movie more than Legally Blonde and How to Get Away With Murder because as a 1L I literally know nothing about the law and think it's a little unrealistic that 1L's would be helping their professors with actual criminal cases. Who knows, maybe in a few months I'll change my stance on that. And in the words of my Contracts professor, "This isn't as sexy as criminal law, but it's one of the more applicable are common areas of the law." 

Related: Perfect movies for law students and Favorite law TV shows

$More Books$

The books for my Legal Research and Writing class finally came in at the bookstore and I'll admit, I'm irritated. Why does one 2-hour class require 4 damn books?! I took a picture of the ISBN numbers to try to rush order some from Chegg since I don't have any reading in it this week, and part of me is really tempted to push how much is required. I have a citation book that a professor gave me in my freshman year, and I have yet to use it once. Do I really need a Blue Book? Like will I be expected to bring it and the three other books to class? Chegg only had the first two books, with renting the first one being almost the same price as buying a used one once you add in shipping and taxes, and the bookstore actually had a new Blue Book cheaper than a rented one off of Chegg, so I guess it'd just be easier to get them from the bookstore. FML there goes more money. 

In case you're wondering, in addition to the above required books for my Legal Research and Writing class, I've also paid this much for my other books:

• Property- $175 (used) 
• Contracts- $191 (rented)
• Tort- $95 (rented)
• Civil Procedure- $240 (bundle with a required workbook)

Cheesy first day of school pic 😊 1 Monday down, 13 more to go!

A photo posted by Nikki (@oh.nikki.you.so.fine) on Aug 24, 2015 at 2:12pm PDT