How to break down legal principles into their individual elements and use them to answer to a problem-style question.
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2.0 Avoiding Assumptions in Criminal Law: Lessons from R v Auriol Grey
Read more: 2.0 Avoiding Assumptions in Criminal Law: Lessons from R v Auriol GreyThe recent Court of Appeal decision in R v Auriol Grey [1] provides us with an object lesson in the importance of applying all the necessary ‘elements’ of law to the facts of the case. This necessity apparently eluded all the parties in Ms Grey’s original trial and ultimately led to her conviction being overturned.…
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2.1 When to discuss all the elements of a criminal offence*
Read more: 2.1 When to discuss all the elements of a criminal offence**or other multi-part legal principle… This post follows on from the comment on the Auriol Grey case in the previous post. As a quick reminder, counsel for the prosecution, counsel for the defence, and the judge, all overlooked the need to demonstrate the elements of the unlawful act in Ms Grey’s manslaughter trial. This led…
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2.2 How to explain the elements of a legal principle
Read more: 2.2 How to explain the elements of a legal principleI hope, in the previous two posts, that I have persuaded you that you should default to explaining all the elements of a criminal offence in your assignments. Here, I want to give you some guidance on how to go about that. Again I will assume criminal law here, but this transfers to other multi-element…
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2.3 A simple worked example of a problem-style answer to demonstrate IRAC structure
Read more: 2.3 A simple worked example of a problem-style answer to demonstrate IRAC structureAs promised in the previous post, here is a simple example of the IRAC approach to problem-style questions with a straightforward homicide scenario. The question here is much less complicated than any you will encounter in an exam or assignment. Students very often purport to use the IRAC approach when answering problem-style questions, but their…
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2.4 How to get started on a judicial review problem question
Read more: 2.4 How to get started on a judicial review problem questionYou’ve just taken a look at your problem question in public/constitutional law. You find yourself confronted with a lengthy problem scenario involving several potential clients. You are asked to advise them on potential grounds of judicial review. How do you even get started with this? Judicial review problem questions can be answered following the same…
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2.5 The IRAC problem style example without the headings
Read more: 2.5 The IRAC problem style example without the headingsWhen IRAC is done well, you don’t need the headings. The structure is invisible. I have removed the headings from the original post and, where appropriate, brought the text together into longer paragraphs. Compare this with the earlier post. Question Xander confronted Jonathan and was heard to say to Jonathan, “I’m going to break every…
