Case Citation in the United States

A legal citation is a reference to a legal authority where particular information, such as a case or statute, can be located. Legal citations are often confusing to the uninitiated because they differ from references used in other types of legal research.

A case citation is most often made up of three parts: a VOLUME number, an ABBREVIATION, and a PAGE number. Case citations are interpreted as follows:

• 265: Volume number where the case appears
• U.S.: Abbreviation for the title set of books reporting the case
• 204: Page number on which the case begins

Often a case will be reported in several different reporters. These additional cites are known as parallel citations. Two examples of parallel citation are given here:

• United States Supreme Court Case citation: 491 U.S. 397, 109 S. Ct 2533, 105 L.Ed.2d 342
• Michigan Supreme Court Case citation: 416 Mich. 63, 330 N.W.2d 366

U.S. Supreme Court decisions are reported in the three reporters listed in the first example of parallel citation: United States Supreme Court Reports (U.S. – the official government publication); Supreme Court Reporter by West Publishing (S.Ct. – an unofficial reporter); and, formerly, United States Supreme Court Reporter, Lawyer’s Edition published by the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company (L.Ed.2d – another unofficial reporter), which were acquired by West. They are also printed in US Law Week, a BNA publication. You only need to look at one of the four sources, however, since each is reporting the same US Supreme Court decisions.

A state case is reported in the second example. Both the particular state’s official reporter (for example, Michigan Reports) and the corresponding regional reporter (Northwestern Reporter Second) are listed. Regional reporters group states according to their geographic location and cumulate the decisions of those states’ particular courts of appeal and last resort.

The regional reporter, published “unofficial” reporters are generally preferred by legal researchers because they are published more quickly than their official counterparts, and they often include more research aids than the official publications.

Reporter Location

The most frequently requested law reporters, including the parallel citations given above, are listed in alphabetical order by abbreviation in the following table. If you have a citation, compare the abbreviation in it to the Reporter Location Table.

For more information on citations, additional abbreviations and their meanings, see the further reading section below.

Resources

Further Reading

● Association of Legal Writing Directors. ALWD Citation Manual. KF 245 .A45 2000
● Bieber’s Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations. KF 246 .P73 1997
● Effective Legal Research. KF 240 .P7 1979
● West’s Federal Tax Research. KF 241 .T38 R33 1997
● Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citations. KF 245. U54 17th ed., 2000