Citing Online Statutes in the United States

Citing Electronic Sources

Before the abundance of electronic legal sources, citation guidelines favored citation to one particular print code or compilation for each U.S. jurisdiction. While, often, citation manuals still remain favouring this approach, in most jurisdictions no single version is universally relied upon. This is because electronic compilations are in general more up-to-date and therefore more widely used than print ones.

Citing Online Sources

As a general rule, when citing electronic sources, the writter should follow the traditional citation for the type of secondary sources (for example, a government document) it is followed by a comma, and then “online:”, and give the name of the website, and the URL. The URL should not be underlined, but it should be enclosed with “”.

For example:

Polly Donda-Kaplan & Natasha Bakht, The Application of Religious Law in Family Law Arbitration Across Canada, online: Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund .

Citing Online Statutes with the Bulebook Manual

The Bluebook requires citation to the official code, if available. However, this does not necessarily mean the print version of the official code. There are instances in which the Bluebook allows one to cite to the online version of an official code. The applicable rules are Rule 12.5(b) and 18.2.1(a), which should be read carefully before citing to an online version of an official code. To summarize, one may cite to an online version of a code if it is an authenticated, official, or exact copy of the print code. For example, the database HeinOnline contains exact copies of the official print version of the United States Code in .pdf, so in accordance with Rule 18.2.1(a)(iii), one can cite to the United States Code on HeinOnline as if to the original print version. Similarly, if a state only publishes its official code online, one can cite to the official online version in accordance with Rules 12.5(b) and 18.2.1(a)(ii). In Utah, for example, there is no official print statutory code and the online version is designated as official.

The most recent edition of the Bluebook also provides a citation format (Rule 12.5) for citing to statutes available in commercial electronic databases