Wikipedia:Manual of Style/U.S. legal citations/Bluebook

This is a proposed citation style for citations to United States legal materials–U.S. federal (and U.S. state) constitutions, statutes, legislative history, administrative regulations, and case law. The general guideline is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (legal).

This citation style is derived from the Bluebook, the most commonly used system of rules for legal citations in the United States. This Guideline differs from the Bluebook in at least the following ways:

• The Bluebook proscribes rules for the citation of all types of sources, including foreign legal materials and non-legal secondary sources, and also governs some non-citation stylistic issues; this Guidline applies only to citations to U.S. legal materials;
• The application of several Bluebook rules can only be fully ascertained when the entire piece is completed; this Guideline accounts for the unique collaborative and "work-in-progress" nature of Wikipedia, and seeks to ensure that previously-added citaitions will remain accurate as new material is added by other authors over time.

Article text

With the exception of the first sentence and introductory infobox in an article about a legal material, all citations should be in footnotes, rather than in the text of the article.

Here are examples for how articles about reported court cases should begin:

• '''''Marbury v. Madison''''', 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803),
• '''''Roe v. Wade''''', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),

The introductory citation should include only the case citation to the last decision issued by the highest court to the issue a written opinion, rather than the entire prior and subsequent history of reported decisions (which should be included in the introductory infobox).

Supra, infra, hereinafter, id.

"Supra note x" and "infra note y" should never be used on Wikipedia because the footnote numbering will change if any new references are added, either by the same author or any subsequent author. To require the subsequent author to update all the supra and infra references when adding new material is too high a barrier to collaboration.

Hereinafter should also not be used because the addition of another citation to the source, or the moving of blocks of text within the article, may change which footnote is the first reference to the material. Secondary sources cited in multiple footnotes should be included in the "References" section and referred to in short-form in individual footnotes.

Id. should also not be used to refer to material in the previous footnote because the addition of new sources quickly renders such footnotes inaccurate. Id. may be used in rare instances in which the same material is cited twice in the same footnote.

Many of the same purposes of supra, infra, hereinafter, and id. may be accomplished with the use of <ref name> and short-form case citations.

Case law

In general

Most case citations should consist of:

<The party names, separated by a "v.", in italics, abbreviating common party names>, <reporter volume number> <reporter name abbreviation> <first page of case in reporter>, <page, or page range, of the material specifically cited> (<court name abbreviation, unless obvious from the reporter> <year>).

For example, for Bush v. Gore:

• Only the last names are used because the parties are natural persons
• The case appears in volume 531 of the United States Reports
• The United States Reports are abbreviated "U.S."
• The first page of the case is on page 98
• The court is obvious because only the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States are published in the United States Reports
• The case case was decided in the year 2000

Thus, the appropriate citation is:

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)

External links

The Bluebook

The Bluebook is copyrighted, and the current version is not available online free.

• LegalBlueBook, a subscription-based online version of the current Bluebook
  • Free PDFs of the 1st (1926) through 15th (1991) editions of the Bluebook

Sites hosting texts of legal materials

These sites are free as in "free beer," but not necessarily free as in freedom.

• Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, comprehensive in scope but extremely limited for historical materials
• FindLaw, similar in coverage to Cornell
• Google Scholar, with some case law and law review articles
• Justia, comparable to Cornell and FindLaw
• Oyez, with audio of Supreme Court oral arguments