Learning the method
Issue spotting looks like intuition from the outside. It is a sequence of decisions, and the decisions can be named and practised. These pages assume no prior familiarity with how law school works.
Understanding elements
Open →A rule is a list of requirements wearing a sentence. What an element is, the five things a phrase in a rule can be, the grammar that tells them apart, and the question that makes a fact pattern legible: which element is actually in doubt?
ReferenceDoctrines & principles
129 doctrines across ten subjects: the problem each solves, the fact pattern that signals it, the anchor case with a link, and how old that reasoning is. Filterable by subject and era.
Open → Tool · for anyoneThe everyday IRAC builder
A workplace policy, an HOA rule, a school handbook, a set of bylaws. If a written rule governs your dispute, this walks you through issue, rule, application, conclusion and hands you something you can send.
Open → ExerciseMastering "it depends"
Sort the facts twice — once on instinct, once against the rule — and see which ones moved. Then finish the sentence: it depends on what, exactly?
Open → GuideReading a fact pattern
The decomposition routine, the difference between a fact and an inference, the grammar of a rule, and the inferential bridge that gets graded — with three exercises built in.
Open → DrillPattern drill
352 questions: name the doctrine from a fact pattern, the term from a use, the case from what it contributed. Sessions of ten to all of them, with a saved list of what you missed.
Open → TrainerLegal language
102 essential terms, each taught three ways: meaning, use inside a pattern, and the neighbouring term it gets confused with. Element or factor. Holding or dictum. Title or possession.
Open → PracticePractice lab
Worked patterns in torts, contracts, and property. Connect facts to elements, state the opposition, and watch what one changed fact moves.
Open → MethodEcho outlining
The outlining approach behind the builders on this page, and how to run it on a course of your own.
Open →