As you work on your spading assignments, you will encounter unfamiliar citations, and you will want to properly cite materials in your own work.
Legal citations typically follow the standards described in THE BLUEBOOK. The 22nd edition (released in 2025) lists noteworthy changes from the previous edition. The 22nd Edition is available online and individual subscriptions start at $42 per year. However, the T2 tables for foreign jurisdictions are available online for free.
For a free, online alternative, try THE INDIGO BOOK, Second Edition, (2022), a system of citations based on the Bluebook Uniform System of Citation. For more information about THE INDIGO BOOK, see it's introduction here.
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The Bluebook
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The Bluebook provides the comprehensive standardized citation for the legal profession in the United States.
Prince's Dictionary of Legal Citations
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Princes Dictionary of Legal Citations: A Reference Guide for Attorneys, Legal Secretaries, Paralegals, and Law Students, Ninth Edition** assists the legal profession in citing legal authorities according to the rules given in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, 20th ed. (2015). This title is a companion to The Bluebook (not a replacement) and applies Bluebook rules to a representative collection of common legal authorities. The citations included are based on Bluebook rules, and the abbreviations are those found in The Bluebook or derived from its guidelines.
While The Bluebook strives to establish uniformity in citation form for court documents, the practitioner should remember that citation rules contained in local rules, state supreme court rules, rules of trial or appellate procedure, and statutes supersede Bluebook rules. Prince¿s includes both references to state court rules for citing cases and statutes, and examples of how to cite cases according to those rules.
What¿s New in the Ninth Edition
Besides updating both Bluebook and state court rule references, this edition has been updated to reflect all Twentieth Edition Bluebook revisions. The citations concerning Internet, electronic media, and other nonprint resources has been revised and expanded. Public domain information has been updated and includes additional domestic jurisdictions that now employ this form of citation. New or revised entries include ebooks, legal dictionaries, Facebook, Linkedin, online newspapers, newspaper editorials and opinions, plays, press releases, Twitter, American Law Institute publications such as Restatements, uniform acts, and model codes, and examples throughout the book citing to online sources.
Legal Citation in a Nutshell
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Learning legal citation is one of the difficult (and sometimes admittedly annoying) tasks that students new to the law face. This book is designed to ease that task. It initially focuses on conventions that underlie all accepted forms and systems of legal citation. Building on that understanding and an explanation of the process of using citations in legal writing, the book then discusses and illustrates the particular rules of The Bluebook and the ALWD Citation Guide for citing cases, statutes, and all other major legal sources. Its unique appendices provide a useful reference resource to aid students in formulating citations.
Here is a recording from our Summer RA Workshop held on May 7, 2025 addressing the Bluebook.
For more information on decoding legal citations, see this sesson presented by Christina Glon, Associate Law Librarian for Research Services, from our Summer RA Workshop - 2022.
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