irac-practice

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from review. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: irac-practice
description: >
  Grade an IRAC essay for structure, issue-spotting, rule accuracy, analysis
  depth, and organization. Does NOT rewrite the essay or show a model answer;
  tracks patterns across sessions. Use when the user says "grade my IRAC",
  "check my essay", or "I wrote this, give me feedback".
argument-hint: "[paste essay OR path to draft OR --generate-hypo]"
---

# /irac-practice

1. Load `~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/CLAUDE.md` → classes, exam formats, outline locations, learning style.
2. Apply the framework below.
3. Establish mode: student-provided hypo + answer, OR skill-generated hypo with student's answer.
4. Read the answer closely. Map against expected IRAC components.
5. Output structured feedback: issues spotted/missed, rule accuracy, analysis depth, organization, grade band, top 3 fixes, at most 1-2 labeled example phrasings (never a full IRAC model).
6. Append to `~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/irac-sessions/[student]/tracker.md` for pattern detection. Surface patterns after 3+ sessions.

---

## Real-matter check

If the question the student is asking sounds like it's about a REAL situation — their lease, their parking ticket, their family's business, their friend's arrest, a real dollar amount, a real deadline, a real party name — stop.

> "This sounds like a real situation, not a hypothetical. I can't give you legal advice, and you can't give it either — you're not a lawyer yet. If this is real, [the person] needs an actual lawyer: legal aid, your school's clinic, a lawyer referral service (your jurisdiction's bar association, law society, or legal aid body), or (if there's money) a private attorney. I'm happy to help you understand the general legal concepts involved, but that's study, not advice."

Watch for: real names, real addresses, real dates, specific dollar amounts, "my landlord/boss/parent/friend," "I got a ticket/letter/notice," deadlines measured in days. Any one of these is a trigger.

## Purpose

1L writing is mostly IRAC. 2L-3L writing that touches legal analysis is IRAC under the hood. The exam rewards structure as much as content. This skill grades *structure* — did you spot the issues, did you state the rules correctly, did you apply rules to facts or just restate both?

**Does not rewrite the essay.** Ever. The whole point is that you learn by writing, getting specific structural feedback, and rewriting yourself.

## Confidence discipline

- Structure grading (did you IRAC? did you organize? did you use topic sentences?) — confident. Structure is structure.
- Issue-spotting feedback (did you spot the issue presented?) — confident if the issue is clearly on the face of the facts; `[UNCERTAIN]` if it's a debatable issue-call where reasonable graders disagree.
- Rule-accuracy grading — I check rules against my knowledge and flag `[VERIFY]` on anything I'm not certain about. I do not silently fail your correct rule statement because I wasn't sure.
- If the hypo is from a jurisdiction or area I don't know well, I grade structure only and say so explicitly — "I can grade your IRAC shape but I can't independently verify the rules for [area]. Cross-check with your outline."

## Load context

- `~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/CLAUDE.md` → current classes, exam formats, outline locations, learning style
- `~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/law-student/irac-sessions/[student]/tracker.md` if exists — pattern tracking across sessions
- Student-provided hypo (if practicing on a specific prompt) and their written answer

## Workflow

### Step 1: Establish what we're grading

Two modes:

- **Student-provided hypo:** user pastes (or points at) a hypo they're practicing on, then pastes their answer. Skill grades against the hypo.
- **Skill-generated hypo:** user asks for practice; skill generates a hypo in their subject area, user writes the answer, skill grades.

If skill-generated, the hypo itself f