Citation Formats

You're probably already familiar with The Bluebook and have discovered that legal citation is not simple. If it was, we wouldn't have books like User's guide to the Bluebook or Understanding and mastering The bluebook : a guide for students and practitioners in our collection. And no, you're not the only one who has ever thought "There must be a better way..."

Other legal citation forms:

Universal Citation Guide - from the Citation Formats Committee of the American Association of Law Libraries
ALWD Citation Manual - from the Association of Legal Writing Directors

Some states, including Colorado, have adopted vendor-neutral citation rules.

See:

• Wikipedia's Case Citation article (see section re: United States) discusses vendor-neutral citation and pinpoint citation.
• U.S. Courts using vendor-neutral "universal citation standards" at the American Bar Association website
  
• American Jurisdictions with vendor-neutral citation rules (as of Dec. 2007) from the American Association of Law Libraries
• CALI exercise: "ALWD Citation Form"

Background:

The Bluebook system was created at Harvard in 1926. In the '90s, the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) began creating a guide for organizations interested in "universal" citations (usable both in print and electronically and not tied to a particular publisher). In 2000, the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) published a more user-friendly citation system aimed at applicability for legal scholars, students and practitioners, as opposed to the Bluebook focus on law reviews.*

*From Larry L. Teply, Legal Writing Citation in a Nutshell 4 (Thomson/West 2008).