how to cite a law case in an essay

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Basic Case Citation

The precise format of a case citation depends on a number of factors, including the jurisdiction, court, and type of case. You should review the rest of this section on citing cases (and the relevant rules in The Bluebook ) before trying to format a case citation for the first time. However, the basic format of a case citation is as follows:

Note: In court documents (briefs, motions) and legal memoranda, a full case name is usually italicized or underlined. In academic legal writing (i.e., a law review article), full case names are generally not underlined or italicized.

Rule & Tables

Rule 10 (and Rule B10 in the Bluepages) governs how to cite cases. It contains extensive instructions on how to format case citations, and Rule 10 also provides guidance on citing briefs, court filings, and transcripts.

In addition to Rule 10, you may need to consult the following tables in order to format the case citation:

Table 1 : A list of (1) reporters* and reporter abbreviations, (2) courts and court abbreviations, and (3) preferred sources to cite for federal courts and each state's courts
Table 6 : Abbreviations for terms used in case names (e.g., America[n] = Am.)
Table 7 : Abbreviations for court names that you would use in the event a court abbreviation is not provided in Table 1
Table 10 : Abbreviations for geographical terms (e.g., Virginia = Va.)

*What Is a Reporter?* A reporter is a publication containing the opinions of a particular court or jurisdiction, organized chronologically by date of decision. The opinions of a given court or jurisdiction are often published in more than one reporter. As you'll see below, for example, opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court are published in three reporters. If a case is published in a reporter, The Bluebook prescribes which reporter is the preferred one to cite (Table 1).

For more on reporters, see our Case Law Research Guide or watch Anatomy of a Case, Case Citation, and the Case Law Reporter System in our Case Law Research Tutorial (on the right).

Case Citations Tutorial

Case Law Research Tutorial

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APA Style 7th Edition: Citing Your Sources

Basics of APA Formatting
In Text Quick View
Block Quotes
Books & eBooks
Thesis/Dissertation
Audiovisual
Conference Presentations
Social Media
Legal References

Standard Format

Formatting rules, various examples.

Reports and Gray Literature
Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
Additional Resources
Reference Page
Legal style order- Title, source, and date (What, Where, When)
Optional- provide a URL for the version used
Court Cases: Title or name of the case is written in standard type for reference entry (italics for in-text citation)
Use this format for enacted bill or resolution not signed into law
Bills and resolutions passed by Congress & signed by the President to become law should be cited as statutes

Additional Resources:

Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School : Guidance on legal citations. Verify legal references containing necessary information and reflect current statues of legal authority (so you're not using amended, repealed or overturned cases).

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FAQ: How do I cite a legal case (court decisions) in APA Style?

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For further information on cases or court decisions, please see pages 357-361, section 11.4, of the APA manual.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7 th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Components of Citing Legal Cases in APA Style

There are five components to a legal citation: title or name of the case; citation; jurisdiction of the court writing the decision; date of the decision, and URL (optional).

Title or Name of the Case

General format.

Name v. Name

For Example

Plessy v. Ferguson

The court decisions are often found in publications called case reporters. You will need to identify the volume number, the name of the reporter, and the first page of the case. The name of the reporter will be abbreviated. For example, F. Supp. for Federal Supplement (decisions from the U.S. District Court are published in the Federal Supplements).

Volume Number Reporter Page number

627 F. Supp. 418

This citation statement means that the court decision can be found in volume 627 of the Federal Supplement starting on page 418.

Jurisdiction of the Court Writing the Decision

The court will be in parentheses. Please note that legal citations frequently use abbreviations. For example, a court decision from the Texas Courts of Appeals would look like: (Tex. App.). For a partial list of abbreviations, please see Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute’s page of abbreviations This link opens in a new window .

Date of the Court Decision

This is in the same set of parentheses as the jurisdiction like this: (Tex. App. 1999)

This is the location from which you found the case information. It is optional, but it may help readers to locate the case.

Example Citations of Federal and State Court Decisions

Name v. Name, Volume number Reporter Page number (Court Year). URL

For Example - Federal

Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/477/57/ This link opens in a new window

U.S. Supreme Court decisions are published in the United States Reports (abbreviated “U.S.” in the reference). You do not need to indicate U.S. Supreme Court within the parentheses since the U.S. part of the citation makes it clear which court this is.

For Example - State

Bates v. Tappan, 99 Mass. 376 (1868). https://cite.case.law/mass/99/376/ This link opens in a new window

The abbreviation “Mass.” stands for Massachusetts Reports and it publishes decisions made by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. You do not need to indicate the court within the parentheses since the Mass. part of the citation makes it clear which court this is.

In-Text Citations

( Name v. Name , Year)

( Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson , 1986)

( Bates v. Tappan , 1868)

Unlike other reference types, the title or name of a case is written in standard type in the References but in italic type in the in-text citation. The year is not in italic type.

More Information

Purdue Online Writing Lab – APA Legal References This link opens in a new window
Legal Information Institute – Introduction to Basic Legal Citation This link opens in a new window

Further Help

This information is intended to be a guideline, not expert advice. Please be sure to speak to your professor about the appropriate way to cite sources in your class assignments and projects.

Campus Students

To access Academic Support, visit your Brightspace course and select “Tutoring and Mentoring” from the Academic Support pulldown menu.

Online Students

To access help with citations and more, visit the Academic Support via modules in Brightspace:

Academic Support Overview: Getting Help with your Schoolwork This link opens in a new window

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Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style

Gaining familiarity with the legal-citation practices used to document legal works may be impractical for student writers and sometimes even for scholars working in nonlegal fields. Nonspecialists can use MLA style to cite legal sources in one of two ways: strict adherence to the MLA format template or a hybrid method incorporating the standard legal citation into the works-cited-list entry. In either case, titles of legal works should be standardized in your prose and list of works cited according to the guidelines below.

Legal Style

Legal publications have traditionally followed the style set forth in the Harvard Law Review Association’s Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation , although some law reviews, such as the University of Chicago Law Review , have published their own style manuals. A more streamlined version of the Bluebook ’s legal-citation method, the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation , was introduced in 2000. The Legal Information Institute, a nonprofit associated with Cornell Law School, publishes an online guide to legal citation geared toward practitioners and nonspecialists instead of academics.

Those working in law are introduced to the conventions of legal citation during their professional training. Legal style is a highly complex shorthand code with specialized terminology that helps legal scholars and lawyers cite legal sources succinctly. It points specialists to the authoritative publication containing the legal opinion or law, regardless of the version the writer consulted.

Students and scholars working outside the legal profession and using MLA style should follow the MLA format template to cite laws, public documents, court cases, and other related material. Familiarize yourself with the guidelines in the MLA Handbook , sections 5.17–22, for corporate authors and government authors.

Following one of the fundamental principles of MLA style, writers citing legal works should document the version of the work they consult—not the canonical version of the law, as in legal style. As with any source in MLA style, how you document it will generally depend on the information provided by the version of the source you consulted.

Titles pose the greatest challenge to citing legal works in MLA style. Since MLA style keys references in the text to a list of works cited (unlike court filings, which cite works in the text of the brief, or academic legal writings, which cite works in footnotes ), writers should, with a few exceptions (noted below), standardize titles of legal sources in their prose and list of works cited. Following the MLA Handbook , italicize the names of court cases (70):

Marbury v. Madison

When you cite laws, acts, and political documents, capitalize their names like titles and set them in roman font (69):

Law of the Sea Treaty

Civil Rights Act

Code of Federal Regulations

When a legal source is contained within another work—for example, when the United States Code appears on a website that has a separate title—follow the MLA Handbook and treat the source as an independent publication (27). That is, style the title just as you would in prose—in italics if it is the name of a court case, in roman if it is a law or similar document; even though the legal source appears within a larger work, do not insert quotation marks around the title:

United States Code. Legal Information Institute , Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text.

For more on titles in legal citations in MLA style, see “Tips on Titles,” below.

Commonly Cited Sources

A few examples of using MLA style for commonly cited legal sources follow.

United States Supreme Court Decisions

United states supreme court dissenting opinions, federal statutes (united states code), public laws, federal appeals court decisions, federal bills, executive orders, state court of appeals, unpublished decisions, state senate bills, constitutions, international governing bodies.

Where you read the opinion of a United States Supreme Court decision will dictate how you cite it in MLA style. Legal-citation style, in contrast, points to the opinion published in the United States Reports , the authoritative legal source for the United States Supreme Court’s decisions, and cites the elements of that publication.

For example, the case Brown v. Board of Education is commonly abbreviated “347 U.S. 483” in legal citations: 347 is the volume number of United States Reports ; “U.S.” indicates that the opinion is found in United States Reports , which is the official reporter of the Supreme Court and indicates the opinion’s provenance; and the first page number of the decision is 483. (The American Bar Association has published a useful and concise overview of the components of a Supreme Court opinion .)

Regardless of the version you consult, you must understand a few basic things about the source: that it was written by a member of the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the majority and that, when you cite the opinion, the date on which the case was decided is the only date necessary to provide.

Following are examples of works-cited-list entries in MLA style for Brown v. Board of Education . The entries differ depending on whether the information was found on the Legal Information Institute website, published by Cornell University Law School, or on the Library of Congress website.

Legal Information Institute

The works-cited-list entry includes

the government entity as author
the name of the case (“Title of source” element)
the year of the decision; it would also not be incorrect to include the day and month if it appears in your source
the title of the website containing the case (“Title of container” element)
the publisher of the website
the website’s URL (“Location” element)

United States, Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education . 17 May 1954. Legal Information Institute , Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483.

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress site allows researchers to link to or download a PDF of the opinion from the United States Reports . To locate the case, the researcher must know the volume number of the United States Reports in which Brown v. Board of Education was published. A works-cited-list entry in MLA style would include the author (the government entity) and the title of the case, as well as the following information for container 1:

United States Reports (“Title of container” element)
vol. 347 (“Number” element)
the date of the decision (“Publication date” element)
page range (“Location” element)

Container 2 includes the name of the website publishing the case and its location, the URL. The publisher of the site is omitted since its name is the same as that of the site.

United States, Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education . United States Reports , vol. 347, 17 May 1954, pp. 483-97. Library of Congress , tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep347/usrep347483/usrep347483.pdf.

Sometimes, Supreme Court justices write dissenting opinions that accompany the published majority opinion. They are part of the legal record but not part of the holding—that is, the court’s ruling. If you cite only the dissent, you can treat it as the work you are citing:

Ginsburg, Ruth Bader. Dissenting opinion. Lilly Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. United States Reports , vol. 550, 29 May 2007, pp. 643-61. Supreme Court of the United States , www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/boundvolumes/550bv.pdf.

In MLA style, it will generally be clearest to create an entry for the United States Code in its entirety and cite the title and section number in the text, especially if you are referring to more than one section of the code.

If an online search directs you to the web page for a specific section of the United States Code, it would not be incorrect to cite the page for that section alone. For example, if you want to use MLA style to document title 17, section 304, of the United States Code—commonly abbreviated 17 U.S.C. § 304 in legal citations—title 17 can be treated as the work and thus placed in the “Title of source” slot on the MLA template, or if you cite the United States Code in its entirety, title 17 can be placed in the “Number” slot.

Your entry will once again depend on the version you consult. Below are examples from various websites.

website for the United States Code

On the website for the United States Code, you would likely determine that the United States House of Representatives is the author of the code. The United States Code is the title of the source, and since the source constitutes the entire website, no container needs to be specified: the source is self-contained, like a book (see p. 34 of the MLA Handbook ). The site lists the Office of the Law Revision Counsel as publisher, so you would include that name in the “Publisher” slot, followed by the date on which the code was last updated, and the URL as the location:

United States, Congress, House. United States Code. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 14 Jan. 2017, uscode.house.gov.

The body of your text or your in-text reference must mention title 17 and section 304 so the reader can locate the information you cite. It would not be wrong to include chapter 3 as well (title 17, ch. 3, sec. 304), although a discerning researcher will note that section numbers (304) incorporate chapter numbers (3), making “chapter 3” unnecessary to include.

If you do not include title 17 and section 304 in the text, you must include that information in the works-cited-list entry:

United States, Congress, House. United States Code. Title 17, section 304, Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 14 Jan. 2017, uscode.house.gov.

A nonspecialist would not be able to determine from the Legal Information Institute site that the United States House of Representatives is the author of the United States Code. A basic citation would include the title of the code as displayed on the site, the title of the website as the title of the container, the publisher of the website, and the location:

Government Publishing Office website

The website of the Government Publishing Office (variously referred to as the Government Printing Office) displays each statute heading (or “title”) as a web page:

You can treat title 17 as the work and the United States Code as the title of the container, as follows:

Title 17. United States Code, U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2011, www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title17/html/USCODE-2011-title17.htm.

Or you can treat the United States Code as the title of the source and title 17 as a numbered section within the code, by placing title 17 in the “Number” slot on the MLA template:

United States Code. Title 17, U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2011, www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title17/html/USCODE-2011-title17.htm.

Below are examples of how to cite other common legal sources in MLA style.

United States, Congress. Public Law 111-122. United States Statutes at Large , vol. 123, 2009, pp. 3480-82. U.S. Government Publishing Office , www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-123/pdf/STATUTE-123.pdf.

United States, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Moss v. Colvin . Docket no. 15-2272, 9 Jan. 2017. United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit , www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions.html. PDF download.

It is customary to title court cases by using the last name of the first party on each side of the v . You may also wish to shorten a long URL, as we have done here .

United States, Congress, House. Improving Broadband Access for Veterans Act of 2016. Congress.gov , www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/6394/text. 114th Congress, 2nd session, House Resolution 6394, passed 6 Dec. 2016.

United States, Congress, House, Committee on Education and Labor. The Future of Learning: How Technology Is Transforming Public Schools . U.S. Government Publishing Office, 16 June 2009, www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg50208/html/CHRG-111hhrg50208.htm. Text transcription of hearing.

After a president signs an executive order, the Office of the Federal Register gives it a number. It is then printed in the Federal Register and compiled in the Code of Federal Regulations. Executive orders usually also appear as press releases on the White House website upon signing.

United States, Executive Office of the President [Barack Obama]. Executive order 13717: Establishing a Federal Earthquake Risk Management Standard. 2 Feb. 2016. Federal Register , vol. 81, no. 24, 5 Feb. 2016, pp. 6405-10, www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-02-05/pdf/2016-02475.pdf.

Minnesota State, Court of Appeals. Minnesota v. McArthur . 28 Sept. 1999, mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive//ctapun/9909/502.htm. Unpublished opinion.

Wisconsin State, Legislature. Senate Bill 5. Wisconsin State Legislature , 20 Jan. 2017, docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2017/related/proposals/sb5.

If a constitution is published in a named edition, treat it like the title of a book:

The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription . National Archives , U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, 28 Feb. 2017, www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript.

The Constitution of the United States, with Case Summaries . Edited by Edward Conrad Smith, 9th ed., Barnes and Noble Books, 1972.

References to the United States Constitution in your prose should follow the usual styling of titles of laws:

the Constitution

But your in-text reference should key readers to the appropriate entry:

( Constitution of the United States, with Case Summaries )

If the title does not indicate the country of origin, specify it in the entry:

France. Le constitution. 4 Oct. 1958. Legifrance , www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Droit-francais/Constitution/Constitution-du-4-octobre-1958.

Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. United Nations, 1998, nfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf. Multilateral treaty.

United States, Senate. Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances. Congress.gov , www.congress.gov/114/cdoc/tdoc8/CDOC-114tdoc8.pdf. Treaty between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

Swiss Confederation. Bundesverfassung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft. 18 Apr. 1999. Der Bundesrat , 1 Jan. 2016, www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19995395/index.html.

United Nations, General Assembly. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Resolution 217 A, 10 Dec. 1948. United Nations , www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/. PDF download.

Writing for Specialists: A Hybrid Method

A writer using MLA style to document a legal work for a specialized readership that is likely to be familiar with the conventions of legal documentation may wish to adopt a hybrid method: in place of the author and title elements on the MLA format template, identify the work by using the Bluebook citation. Then, follow the MLA format template to list publication information for the version of the source you consulted.

For example, to cite the United States Code using the hybrid method, treat the section cited as the work. As above, you can omit the title of the website, United States Code , since the code constitutes the entire website and is thus a self-contained work.

17 U.S.C. § 304. Office of Law Revision Counsel, 14 Jan. 2017, uscode.house.gov.

If you are citing a court case, begin the entry with the title of the case before listing the Bluebook citation. In the hybrid style, cite Brown v. Board of Education as found on the Legal Information Institute website thus:

Brown v. Board of Education . 347 U.S. 483. Legal Information Institute , Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483.

Other sources (public laws, federal appeals court decisions, etc.) can be handled similarly.

If using the hybrid method, do not follow the handbook’s recommendation to alphabetize works that start with a number as if the number is spelled out. Instead, list works beginning with numbers before the first lettered entry and order numbered works numerically.

TIPS ON TITLES Styling titles when you document legal sources in MLA style may be challenging. Below are some guidelines. Standardize titles of legal sources in your prose unless you refer to the published version: as the MLA Handbook indicates, italicize the names of court cases, but capitalize the names of laws, acts, and political documents like titles and set them in roman font. When a legal source is contained within another work—for example, when the United States Code appears on a website with another title—follow the MLA Handbook , page 27, and treat the work as an independent publication. That is, style the title just as you would in prose—in italics if it is the name of a court case, in roman if it is a law or similar document; even though the legal source appears in a larger work, do not insert quotation marks around the title. In the names of court cases, use the abbreviation v. consistently, regardless of which abbreviation is used in the version of the work you are citing. To determine the name of a court case, use only the name of the first party that appears on either side of “v.” or “vs.” in your source; if the name is a personal name, use only the surname. To shorten the name of a court case in your prose after introducing it in full or in parenthetical references, use the name of the first-listed nongovernmental party. Thus, the case NLRB v. Yeshiva University becomes Yeshiva . If your list of works cited includes more than one case beginning with the same governmental party, list entries under the governmental party but alphabetize them by the first nongovernmental party: NLRB v. Brown University

NLRB v. Yeshiva University

Refer to the nongovernmental party in your prose and parenthetical reference, alerting readers to this system of ordering in a note .

Special thanks to Noah Kupferberg, of Brooklyn Law School, for assistance with these guidelines.

35 Comments

Laurie nebeker 08 august 2017 at 02:08 pm.

My eleventh-grade English students write research papers about Supreme Court cases. In the MLA 7th edition (5.7.14) there was a note about italicizing case titles in the text but not in the list of works cited or in parenthetical references. Has this changed for the 8th edition? Also, you've given examples about formatting SCOTUS rulings, but most of the resources my students use are articles about the cases from news sources, specialty encyclopedias, etc. Should case titles be italicized when they appear within article titles? Thanks!

Your e-mail address will not be published

Angela Gibson 09 August 2017 AT 07:08 AM

You are correct to note this change. To make legal works a bit easier to cite, we now recommend that writers italicize the names of court cases both in the text and the list of works cited. When the name of a court case is contained within another work, style the title just as you would anywhere else. Thus, a SCOTUS ruling in the title of a news article would appear in italics. Thanks for reading; I hope this helps!

Nia Alexander 31 January 2018 AT 06:01 PM

How would I cite the 2015 National Content Report? It contains information similar to that of a census.

Angela Gibson 01 February 2018 AT 07:02 AM

There is an example here: https://style.mla.org/citing-tables/.

Nathan Hoepner 12 February 2018 AT 01:02 AM

One of my students wants to use the Versailles Treaty (officially, "Treaty of Peace with Germany"). The Library of Congress has a pdf copy posted. Should he list the treaty in his sources with the URL, or, since is just a copy of the official treaty, just list title, date, and "multilateral treaty"?

ben zuk 17 March 2018 AT 06:03 PM

how would I cite Supreme Court case from Justia?

Patricia Morris 27 March 2018 AT 10:03 AM

Can you give an example for citing the Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics?

Michael Park 03 May 2018 AT 12:05 PM

How do i cite a introduced bill into congress

ML Chilson 04 November 2018 AT 05:11 PM

How do I cite a pending case that is still at the trial court level, including citation to the briefs that have been filed by the various parties?

Blah 08 November 2018 AT 11:11 AM

how do you cite a complaint in mla format

Marlow Chapman 10 December 2018 AT 08:12 PM

How would one cite a Title (specifically Title VII) from the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Angela Gibson 11 December 2018 AT 05:12 PM

How you cite it will depend on where you access it. Some points: following the MLA format template, your entry will start with the title of the law. This will either be Civil Rights Act or Title 7 (see the discussion of Federal Statutes above for considerations about which title to begin your entry with). Your in-text citation (whether in prose or parentheses) should direct the reader to the first element in your works-cited list (in other words, the title).

Jeff Jeskie 04 February 2019 AT 08:02 AM

How do my students properly list the Supreme Court cases that are linked on the Exploring Constitutional Law site by Doug LInder at UMKC Law School site?

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/home.html?

Patricia Moseley 14 February 2019 AT 10:02 AM

I need help. My 8th grade history class is answering questions on the US Constitution and citing their answer.

There are five rights in the First Amendment, which include freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of their grievances (U.S. Constitution).

Is this in-text citation done correctly? Also, are the amendments spell out or does one use the Roman numeral in text?

Thank You!!!

Angela Gibson 15 February 2019 AT 10:02 AM

If U.S. Constitution is the first element in the works-cited-list entry, the in-text citation is correct. Spell out ordinal numbers (First Amendment), but use numerals for numbers of count (Amendment V) and, by convention, use Roman numerals for divisions of legal works that use them.

Ella 05 December 2019 AT 08:12 PM

How would you cite a state supreme court case?

Ana 06 December 2019 AT 09:12 AM

How would I cite an Act? More precisely, I want to cite The New York State Dignity for All Students Act. How would I do it on in-text citations and on the work cited page? Thanks!

Amanda 17 April 2020 AT 05:04 PM

How would I cite a tribal constitution? Do I use the date of the original publication or the most recent amendment or resolution?

most are found on their tribal government websites so would i treat it like this:

(italicized) Title of Document: Subtitle if Given (italicized) . Edition if given and is not first edition, Name of Government Department, Agency or Committee, Publication Date, URL. Accessed Day Month Year site was visited.

yet, I still do not know what date to use. Or should i just cite it from a print publication or Nat. Archives so I can use the example given in your list above?

Angela Gibson 20 April 2020 AT 09:04 AM

Cite the version you're looking at and use the date of access if it's the only date you can provide.

Marissa 25 October 2020 AT 05:10 PM

How would you cite The Declaration of Independence?

Jennifer A. Rappaport 26 October 2020 AT 08:10 PM

Thanks for your question. Please consult Ask the MLA: https://style.mla.org/category/ask-the-mla/

Carol Holyoke 19 January 2021 AT 10:01 PM

Could you please tell me how to cite the Declaration of Independence? Do I put it in the Works Cited List?

Angela Gibson 20 January 2021 AT 09:01 AM

It is generally a good idea to create a works-cited-list entry for the version of the document you are transcribing a quotation from (e.g., see our example for the Constitution). Create your entry just as you would for any other source--follow the template of core elements and list any relevant elements that apply.

Diane 23 February 2021 AT 07:02 PM

How do I correctly cite a Congressional public law In Text? I can only find how to cite in works cited pages. Thank you!

Rowena 28 April 2021 AT 09:04 AM

If I quote sections from a piece of legislation does it need to be italicised as well as quotation marks?

Charlotte Norcross 15 November 2021 AT 11:11 AM

How do I correctly cite the congressional record from a specific session? Thanks!

Carl Sandler 02 February 2022 AT 02:02 PM

I am submitting a report to an attorney consisting of investigative findings related to an automobile accident. Some of the information in my report will be technical in nature and other information will be in the form of my opinion(s) based on conclusions drawn from deposition testimony of witnesses and persons knowledgeable of the event. Considering the report will be read by both legal professionals and others not of the legal profession, what approach and format (with examples, please) should be used to cite deposition testimony and also Exhibits presented during the taking of the deposition? I am familiar with Bluebook style of legal citations, however not all persons reading my report would have this same understanding.

Lev 18 April 2022 AT 11:04 AM

Dear MLA Editor: When citing court cases in another language (French), should I keep the title of the case in the original language, translate it, or provide a translation in brackets? The same question goes for the name of the docket number, court, date of publication, and other elements. The MLA manual does not offer any guidance on this! Thanks in advance for any help.

Heidi 27 April 2023 AT 10:04 AM

What is the proper way to reference a recently filed lawsuit (a pending case) in legal writing (letters and memos)? Thanks!

Jennifer Washington 13 February 2024 AT 11:02 PM

How are state educational codes shaping standards for textbooks and materials cited in-text and on works cited?

Margaret Handrow 09 April 2024 AT 09:04 AM

How are state laws and state house bills cited? What would be the in-text citations for state laws and state house bills?

Laura Kiernan 09 April 2024 AT 03:04 PM

For guidance on citing state laws, see this post on the Style Center .

Margaret Handrow 11 April 2024 AT 08:04 PM

The Works Cited for state laws I have. What do the parenthetical and narrative in-text citations look like?

Margaret Handrow 11 April 2024 AT 09:04 PM

MLA Handbook 6.6 has the following example for in-text citations for U.S. Supreme Court cases - A recent case held that "the immunity enjoyed by foreign governments is a general rather than specific reference" (United States, Supreme Court).

How does MLA handle more than one court case? For example: United States, Supreme Court. Ableman v. Booth. United States Reports, vol. 62, 7 March 1859, pp. 506-525 Range. Fastcase, https://public.fastcase.com/jaEE2PXzRXmZ99jOLMt1Il18sGeib03xlSTGPHuTkMPJngvbMveRhemGzelvNShH. [62 US 506] and United States, Supreme Court. Miles v. United States. United States Reports, vol. 103, October Term, 1880, pp. 304-316 Range. Fastcase, https://public.fastcase.com/waZtJvSA54UAurM2rmIZz8tSNJfRFb72tc2JnYR%2b1g3S9cDguTf04pkUdcNTnFEq [103 US 304] Would the following work as parenthetical in-text citations? (United States, Supreme Court, Ableman v. Booth 520) and (United States, Supreme Court, Miles v. United States 311)? Or would using (Ableman v. Booth 520) and (Miles v. United States 311) be better?

Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), for example - 28 CFR Part 551 Subpart G.

My best guess for the Works Cited would be something along this line - United States. Department of Justice. Bureau of Prisons. Department of Justice Institutional Management. “Miscellaneous, Administering of Polygraph Test, Purpose and Scope, Procedures,” Title 28, 29 June 1979, Part 551, Subpart G, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-28/chapter-V/subchapter-C/part-551/subpart-G?toc=1.

Would the parenthetical in-text citation be - (United States. Department of Justice. Bureau of Prisons. Department of Justice Institutional Management 551)? This is for one source from 28 CFR Part 551 Subpart G. How would one differentiate a different Subpart that is on the same page?

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Referencing and citations - OSCOLA: Case law

Legislation
Other sources
Cross referencing
Referencing software
Help and support

Case Law Contents

In a nutshell.

The components of a typical case citation are the case name, the neutral citation (where appropriate) and the law report citation.

Use italics for the name of the case, with an unpunctuated italic v to separate the names of adverse parties.

A comma separates the neutral citation and the law report citation.

There are no full stops in the abbreviations: hence ‘UKHL’ rather than ‘U.K.H.L.’.

From page 20 in the OSCOLA guide, you can find further information on citation of older cases, and cases from other constituent parts of the UK.

Citations WITH neutral citation

The components of a typical case citation including a neutral citation are:

Neutral citations can be found by checking the case on one of the big commercial databases, or on BAILII .

Only cases from 2001 onwards will have neutral citations.

The example below indicates that the case involving Corr and IBC Vehicles Ltd was the thirteenth judgment issued by the House of Lords in 2008, and that a report of the judgment can be found in volume one of the 2008 volume of the series of the Law Reports called the Appeal Cases, beginning at page 884.

Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd [2008] UKHL 13, [2008] 1 AC 884.

Citations WITHOUT neutral citation

The components of a typical case citation without a neutral citation (ie prior to 2001) are:

Page v Smith [1996] AC 155 (HL).

NB: put the court abbreviation in brackets at the end of the citation.

Which report to cite?

In England and Wales, there are no official law reports of any kind, but the Law Reports series published by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (www.lawreports.co.uk) are regarded as the most authoritative reports - they include the arguments of counsel and are checked by both counsel and the judge. If a case is reported in this series, it should be cited in preference to any other report.

If a judgment is not reported in the Law Reports, cite the Weekly Law Reports or the All England Law Reports. Only if a judgment is not reported in one of these general series should you refer to a specialist series, such as the Lloyd’s Law Reports or the Family Law Reports.

Unreported cases

If a case is unreported but has a neutral citation, give that. If an unreported case does not have a neutral citation (which will always be the case before 2001), give the court and the date of the judgment in brackets after the name of the case. There is no need to add the word ‘unreported’.

Stubbs v Sayer (CA, 8 November 1990).
Calvert v Gardiner [2002] EWHC 1394 (QB).

Judgments of the European Court of Justice and Court of First Instance:

Give the case registration number in roman and then the name of the case in italics, with no punctuation between them. Give the report citation in the same form as for UK cases. The case number can be checked on any of the commercial databases or on EUR-lex , and will consist of the court prefix, a rolling number and the year. Citations should follow the format:

case number | case name | [year] | report abbreviation | first page.

Case T–344/99 Arne Mathisen AS v Council [2002] ECR II–2905.

Where possible, refer to the official European Court Reports, which are cited as ECR. If an ECR reference is not available, the second best report is usually the Common Market Law Reports (CMLR).

When citing an opinion of an Advocate General, add the words ‘Opinion of AG [name]’ after the case citation and a comma, and before any pinpoint.

Case C–411/05 Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA [2007] ECR I–8531, Opinion of AG Mazák, paras 79–100.

Decisions of the European Commission in relation to competition law and mergers are to be treated as cases. Give the names of the parties (or the commonly used short name) in italics, the case number in brackets, the Commission Decision number (where available), and the OJ report.

Alcatel/Telettra (Case IV/M.042) Commission Decision 91/251/EEC [1991] OJ L122/48

Further information about citing EU cases can be found from page 30 of the OSCOLA guide.

Pinpointing

You may wish to refer to a specific paragraph of a judgement or page of a report in your work.

If the judgment has numbered paragraphs, pinpoint to a particular paragraph by putting the relevant paragraph number in square brackets. If pinpointing to more than one paragraph, separate the paragraph numbers in square brackets with a comma. If citing spans of paragraphs, insert a dash between the first and last paragraph being cited.

Callery v Gray [2001] EWCA Civ 1117, [2001] 1 WLR 2112 [42], [45].
Bunt v Tilley [2006] EWHC 407 (QB), [2006] 3 All ER 336 [1]–[37].

If a law report citation ends with the identification of the court in brackets, the pinpoint follows the closing bracket, without any comma. Where the court is not identified in this way, and you are pinpointing to a page number, insert a comma to prevent the numbers running together. Where the pinpoint reference is to the first page of the report, repeat the page number. Multiple page number pinpoints should be separated by commas.

Beattie v E & F Beattie Ltd [1938] Ch 708 (CA) 720, 723.
R v Leeds County Court, ex p Morris [1990] QB 523 (QB) 530–31.

[(Brackets)]

Use [square brackets] around the year in your citation when the year is necessary to identify the volume - ie if you removed the year from the citation, you would not be able to locate it.

Barrett v Enfield LBC [2001] 2 AC 550 (HL).

Use (round brackets) when the volumes of the law report series are independently numbered, so that the year of publication is not needed to find the volume. In this instance, the year being given is the year of the judgement, NOT the year of publication.

Barrett v Enfield LBC (1999) 49 BMLR 1 (HL).
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Last Updated: Feb 7, 2024 11:13 AM
URL: https://libguides.ials.sas.ac.uk/referencing

ACAP LEARNING RESOURCES

Reference with Harvard

About In-Text Citations
About Reference Lists
Audio-visual
Books & eBooks
Conference Papers
Government Reports
Newspapers & Online News
Other Sources & Variations
Secondary Referencing
Case Law & Legislation
Writing style guide
Differences Between APA & Harvard
How to Reference
Assignment Presentation Requirements

Reported Case Law

Reference List
In-text Citation

Do not use in-text citations for case law or legislation. Rather, mention the case or legislation in the written text. The reference list should have separate sections for cases and legislation where you list cases or Acts referred to in the body of the essay. See below for appropriate ways to cite these.

Reported Case Law in the Reference List

(This image has been taken from the AGLC4 p. 39. The AGLC4 and Style Manual follow the same format when referencing reported cases)

More examples of Reported Case Law in the Reference List:

R v Denyer [1995] 1 VR 186 R stands for Rex/Regina (King/Queen/Crown) Party names separated by v (which stands for and in civil matters and against in criminal matters) Denyer is the defendant [square brackets used around the year because the law report series has no independent volume number]. 1 refers to the part VR is the abbreviation for the law report series - Victorian Reports 186 is the starting page of the case. Denyer v R (1997) 188 CLR 207 Party names separated by v. (round brackets used around the year because there is an independent volume number) 188 = volume number CLR is the abbreviation for the law report series 207 is the starting page

If you need to check a case law abbreviation, check the Monash Legal Abbreviations Page

According to the Navitas College of Public Safety Referencing Guide (p.20):

Do not use in-text citations for case law or legislation. Rather, mention the case or legislation in the written text. The references should have separate sections for cases and legislation where you list cases or Acts referred to in the body of the essay.

Case Law from AustLII (medium neutral citation format)

According to the Style Manual for Authors Editors and Printers, 6th edn, p.227.

'On first mention in the text, the authority should be cited in full. An abbreviated form or the name by which the case is commonly known can be given in parentheses following the formal citation. After that the abbreviated or common form can be used'. For example, when referencing the Mabo case from AustLII, use the following the first time: Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23 (3 June 1992) ("Mabo case"). Following on from this, you can refer to the Mabo Case in the body of your essay.

Remember - do not use in-text citations for case law or legislation. Rather, mention the case or legislation in the written text in full the first time and then you can use the abbreviated name for the rest of your essay.

The reference list should have separate sections for cases and legislation where you list cases or Acts referred to in the body of the essay. See below for appropriate ways to cite these. When referencing case law from AustLII, use the medium neutral citation referencing format. This is explained on page 54 of the AGLC4 .

The party names are separated by v The year is included in square brackets A unique court identifier is used instead of the court name The judgement number is listed The date is included in round brackets.

Re: the example above... When reading this case on AustLII, the information you need to reference a case is provided at the top of the page - see the diagram below. Simply copy this information and ensure that the party names are placed in italics

What is the green arrow in this diagram? It was one of the keywords used to locate this case on the database. Therefore, it is highlighted with a green arrow. For referencing purposes, ignore the green arrow.

For example, when referencing the Mabo case from AustLII, use the following the first time: Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23 (3 June 1992) ("Mabo case"). Following on from this, you can refer to the Mabo Case in the body of your essay.

Legislation

Legislation in the Reference List

(This image has been taken from the AGLC4 p. 67. The AGLC4 and Style Manual follow a similar format when referencing reported cases)

Crimes Act 1958 (Vic)

Crimes Act 1914 (Cwlth)

Note: The date is part of the title.

Note: Even though you are using the Harvard Author/Date referencing system, ACAP Criminology/Policing students are likely to see books and articles which use two different referencing styles - the Harvard and the Australian Guide to Legal Citation, 3rd ed., (AGLC3). There is a difference between the styles when referencing Commonwealth Legislation Harvard = Cwlth. Example: Crimes Act 1914 (Cwlth) AGLC4 = Cth. Example: Crimes Act 1914 (Cth)

AGLC4 The AGLC4 was published in 2018.
Major substantive changes between AGLC3 and AGLC4
AGLC4 Corrections
AGLC4 Summary Page
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Last Updated: Apr 23, 2024 10:49 AM
URL: https://libguides.navitas.com/harvard

Bluebook Guide: Basic Case Citation

Introduction
Sentences & Clauses
Signals & Parentheticals
Typeface for Law Reviews
Typeface for Court Documents
Abbreviations
Other Mechanics
Basic Case Citation
Federal Cases
State Cases
Illinois Cases
Unpublished Opinions
Parallel Citations
Short Form Citation
Id., Supra & “Hereinafter”
Random Examples
Constitutions
Legislative Materials
Administrative & Executive Materials
General Whitepage Rules
Whitepages Special Citations
More Whitepage Specifics
Bluepage Directions
Periodicals
Electronic & Nonprint
Foreign Materials
International Materials
UIC Law Review

Case Citation

Basic Citation

The precise format of a case citation depends on various factors, including the jurisdiction, court, and type of case. Review the rest of this section on case citations and the relevant rules in The Bluebook before trying to format a case citation for the first time. See R10, pp. 95-118.

Elements of a Citation

1. Case Names 2. Reporters & Other Sources 3. Court & Jurisdiction 4. Date or Year 5. Parenthetical Information 6. Prior & Subsequent History

In court documents (the former examples), a full case name is generally italicized or underlined. For a law review article footnote (the latter example), such as a law review article, the full case name is not underlined or italicized.

In its Q uick Style Guide, The Bluebook provides some online examples to illustrate how to cite commonly used sources in accordance with the Whitepages, which are intended for use in law review footnotes.

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Next: Federal Cases >>
Last Updated: May 8, 2024 1:57 PM
URL: https://libraryguides.law.uic.edu/c.php?g=1386543

Legal Citation: Citing Case Law

Citing Legislation
Citing Case Law
Citing the Charter of Rights
Citing Bills
Quick Citation Reference Information
More Resources
Finding Legislation (Statutes, Regulations, Bills)
Finding Case Law
Beyond the Library

Traditional Form of Legal Citation

Case law is law established by judicial decision in cases.

When citing to a printed law reporter, the traditional form of legal citation requires these elements:

case name (also known as the style of cause) in italics
v to separate names (indicates language of case is English) in italics
year of decision in round brackets followed by a comma [or a comma, then the year of publication in square brackets if the year is needed to identify the book]
volume number
standard abbreviation of printed reporter title (i.e. DLR for Dominion Law Reports)
series number in round brackets, if included
court abbreviation in round brackets, only if not included in the reporter name

General Citation

Case Name (Year), Vol. # Reporter Title (Series#) Page (Court Abbreviation).

R v Latimer (1995), 126 DLR (4th) 203 (Sask CA).

R v Latimer is the case name, 1995 is the year of decision, volume 126 clearly identifies the exact volume so the year does not need to be in square brackets, DLR for Dominion Law Reports, 4th series, case beginning on page 203 , as heard by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal which is abbreviated Sask CA.

APA In Text/ Parenthetical Citation: ( Case Name , Year, Page or Paragraph number if required)

Example: ( R v Latimer , 1995)

Citing from the Supreme Court of Canada Reports (SCR)

The SCR (Supreme Court of Canada Reports) uses square brackets. Put the comma before the date of the volume. Do not put the (SCC) court abbreviation at the end of the citation, as the name of the court has been included in the reporter name.

R v Chaisson , [2006] 1 SCR 415.

R v Chaisson is the case name, [2006] is the year of publication and needs to be in square brackets because volume 1 does not uniquely identify the book, SCR for Supreme Court Reports, the case beginning on page 415.

Example: ( R v Chaisson , 2006, p.415)

Citing a case WITHOUT neutral citation

If a case does not have a neutral citation, include the following:

style of cause, year of decision [if not part of main citation], law reporter volume number, law reporter abbreviation, law reporter series, page number, pinpoint [if needed], parallel law report/source, jurisdiction and court [if not indicated by reporters], judge [if needed]

Fucella v Ricker (1982), 35 OR (2d) 423, [1982] OJ No 3144 (QL) (H Ct J)

Example breakdown

Style of cause: Fucella v Ricker (same as neutral citation)

Year of decision: 1982

Law reporter volume number: 35 OR (2d) 423 - volume 35 of the second series of the Ontario Reports, starting at p.423.

Law reporter abbreviation: OR (Ontario Reports)

Law reporter series: 2d (second series of OR)

Page number: 423

Pinpoint: Only needed if you are citing a particular passage in a judgment

Parallel law report/source: QL (Quicklaw) --> [1982] OJ No 3144 (QL) = case identifier given by Quicklaw

Jurisdiction: (not needed because OR indicates jurisdiction = Ontario)

Court: (H Ct J) = High Court of Justice

For more information, see the McGill Guide, Rules 3.2 and 3.7:

Canadian Guide to Legal Citation Call Number: KE 259 C264 2018 ISBN: 9780779885824 Publication Date: 2018 Douglas College library bases its guides on the Canadian Guide to Legal Citation (often referred to as the McGill Guide)

Neutral Citation

A neutral citation permits identification of a case independent of a printed reporter. Courts assign the neutral citation when they render a decision. The date of implementation for the neutral citation standard varies for British Columbia courts. In January 1999, the Court of Appeal was the first court in BC to implement the neutral citation standard for judgments in electronic form. The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 9th Edition, 2018 (also known as "The McGill Guide") lists the implementation date for each court in Appendix B-3.

Neutral citation is simplified and includes only these elements:

case name (also known as style of cause) in italics followed by a comma,
year or date of decision without any brackets
court identifier abbreviated without periods
case number - decision or docket number(s)

Generic Example

Case Name , Year Court Identifier Case Number.

A neutral citation should always be followed by a citation to a printed reporter, whenever one is available.

Neutral Citation ONLY

The court assigns the neutral citation when the decision is rendered, so a very recent case will have only a neutral citation until it is included in a printed reporter. If only the neutral citation is available, it may be used alone:

Example of Neutral Citation only

Rutledge v Jimmie , 2014 BCSC 41.

In this British Columbia Supreme Court case, Rutledge v Jimmie is the case name, 2014 is the year of decision, BCSC is the court identifier, and 41 is the case number.

Example: ( Rutledge v Jimmie , 2014)

Neutral Citation AND Printed Reporter

A neutral citation should always be followed by a citation to a printed reporter, whenever one is available. This is called a parallel citation .

R v Latimer , 2001 SCC 1, [2001] 1 SCR 3.

This latest appeal of the Latimer case has a parallel neutral citation. The printed reporter citation follows the neutral citation. Note that the comma in the citation to the printed reporter comes directly after the neutral citation, and not after the year of the reporter.

When citing an electronic version of a decision, such as through Quicklaw or another database, it is necessary to include the name of the database or online source. See Appendix E in the McGill Guide for a list of electronic database abbreviations.

Example: ( R v Latimer , 2001)

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Last Updated: Feb 29, 2024 2:36 PM
URL: https://guides.douglascollege.ca/legalcitation

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Knowledge Base
Referencing
A Quick Guide to OSCOLA Referencing | Rules & Examples

A Quick Guide to OSCOLA Referencing | Rules & Examples

Published on 28 February 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 5 May 2022.

The Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is a referencing style used by students and academics in law.

OSCOLA referencing places citations in footnotes, which are marked in the text with footnote numbers:

The judge referred to the precedent established by Caulfield v Baldwin . 1

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Citing sources with oscola footnotes, oscola referencing examples, oscola tables and bibliography.

A citation footnote appears whenever you quote from, paraphrase or otherwise refer to the content of a source in your text.

A footnote is marked in the text with a footnote number, which appears at the end of the relevant sentence or clause. The number is displayed in superscript (i.e. 1) and appears after any punctuation like a comma or full stop:

These footnotes contain full information on the source cited. The format in which you present this information varies according to the type of source; examples are presented in the following section. A footnote always ends with a full stop:

Standard abbreviations

To save space in OSCOLA citations, abbreviations are used for the names of various publications and legal bodies.

For example, ‘UKSC’ is the United Kingdom Supreme Court, and ‘Cr App R’ refers to the Criminal Appeal Reports.

A full, searchable index of these abbreviations can be found here .

Pinpointing

In OSCOLA referencing, referring to a specific page number within a source is called pinpointing. To pinpoint, simply include a page number at the end of your reference, in addition to any page numbers already included.

For example, in the following citation, the first number refers to the page on which the report begins , while the second number pinpoints the passage you’re referring to :

Where available, paragraph numbers should be used instead of page numbers. Only do this if paragraph numbers are explicitly used in the text. Paragraph numbers appear in square brackets and can be used for pinpointing in the same way as page numbers:

Note that if you’re pinpointing a judge’s comments within a case report, you include the name of the judge, and some special terms and abbreviations are used in the citation and in the text.

If the judge is a peer, refer to them as ‘Lord’, e.g. Lord Williams. If they are a Lord/Lady Justice, use ‘LJ’, e.g. Williams LJ. If neither of these is the case, use ‘J’ for judge, e.g. Williams J:

Cross-referencing repeated citations of the same source

OSCOLA uses a system of cross-referencing to save space when you repeatedly cite the same source. This means that for subsequent references of a source, you don’t have to repeat the full citation.

When you refer to the same source you have just referred to (i.e. when the previous footnote was also about that source), you can simply use ‘ibid’ (Latin for ‘in the same place’):

In this example, the second footnote also refers to Davis v Dignam, but to page 522 instead of page 519.

When the previous reference to the source was in an earlier footnote (i.e. when other citations appear in between), use the author’s last name or the title (shortened if it’s a longer title), followed by the number of the previous citation (in brackets and preceded by ‘n’), then the page number you’re pinpointing (if different than the first citation):

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OSCOLA provides formats for a variety of source types. The most common ones are covered below.

Case reports

When citing a case, you’ll usually begin with a neutral citation – a way of referring to the case that does not relate to a particular report – and then give the details of the report afterwards. If no neutral citation exists, as with cases before 2002, you can just begin with the report.

Additionally, note that the year (for the report) is displayed differently depending on whether it is essential to the citation. For reports where each year is also identified with a volume number, the year appears in normal brackets. For those where multiple volumes appear in one year, the year appears in square brackets.

Case report with neutral citation
Case report with no neutral citation

Acts of Parliament

Use a short version of the title if the full title is longer than three words. If necessary, refer to specific parts of an Act of Parliament using section, subsection and paragraph numbers.

Statutory instruments

Statutory instruments (SIs) are numbered consecutively throughout the year; it’s this number that appears at the end of the citation – the example below is the 149th SI of 2020.

House of Commons bills are cited slightly differently from House of Lords bills. You write ‘HC Bill’ or ‘HL Bill’ depending upon which house it is, and bill numbers for Commons bills appear in square brackets.

House of Commons bill
House of Lords bill

Hansard is the official transcript of parliamentary debates in the UK. As with bills, write ‘HC’ for the House of Commons and ‘HL’ for the House of Lords. ‘Deb’ is short for ‘debate’, ‘vol’ for volume, and ‘col’ for column.

Use the full name of the author(s) as written in the source. List the edition (abbreviated to ‘edn’) when it is stated on the title page. Note that OSCOLA recommends abbreviating ‘Oxford University Press’ to ‘OUP’; this is not the case with other publishers.

Certain older books are listed by OSCOLA as ‘works of authority’ and given special abbreviated citations. For example, the following is a citation of volume 3, page 75 of Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England :

OSCOLA provides a list of these abbreviations in their full guide , section 4.2.3.

Journal articles

As with case reports, square brackets are used for years in a journal citation if the year also identifies the volume; normal brackets are used when there are multiple volumes in a year.

Note that standard abbreviations are also used for journal names; here ‘MLR’ refers to Modern Law Review.

In a longer work, such as a thesis or dissertation , OSCOLA requires you to include tables listing any cases and legislation you cited, as well as a bibliography listing any secondary sources . For shorter essays, this is usually not necessary, but do check your institution’s guidelines.

The tables and bibliography appear at the end of your text. The table of cases comes first, followed by the table of legislation, and then the bibliography.

Sources are listed in alphabetical order within each table and in the bibliography.

Table of cases

Cases are written in a similar format here and in the main text; the only difference is the names of the parties involved are not italicised in the table of cases:

Table of legislation

The table of legislation includes all legal sources used other than cases – for example, bills, Acts of Parliament and SIs. Items in the table of legislation are listed in identical form to how they are cited in the text.

Bibliography

A bibliography lists all your secondary sources – that is, everything other than cases and legislation. For example, here you would list Hansard , any books and journal articles cited, and other sources such as blogs, social media and newspapers.

Bibliography entries differ from citations in terms of their presentation of the author’s name. Author names in the bibliography are inverted, and initials are used in place of the first name:

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, May 05). A Quick Guide to OSCOLA Referencing | Rules & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 14 May 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/oscola/

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Citing Cases in Exams

Probably the most important thing to remember to do when citing a case in an examination is to underline the case name. In printed text the full citation is used, for example, The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd [1953] 1 QB 401. Clearly you are not expected to memorize all these details and in an examination it would be appropriate to cite the case as: Pharmaceutical Society of GB v Boots Chemists . If you cannot remember the names of both parties then write the name of one of the parties, for example, “the Boots case”. In the context of a good answer this will be enough information for the examiner to realize that you know the relevant authority. Obviously this wouldn’t apply to writing “ R ” in a Criminal case, such as R v Hughes . If you can’t remember the case name then – rarely – and as a last resort – you can rehearse some of the facts of the case. For example: “In a decided case, where the issue was whether displaying goods on the shelves of a self-service shop was an invitation to treat or an offer”.

Generally dates will not matter but it can be useful to remember the level of the Court and the sequence of the cases where a case has been overruled or doubted.

Legal, Public and Unpublished Materials

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General Guidelines for Public and Unpublished Materials

Notes and bibliographic entries for public documents, like other documents, should include the elements needed to locate the items. These essential elements often include the following:

Country, city, state, province, county, etc.
Legislative body, executive department, court, bureau, board commission or committee, etc.
Subsidiary divisions
Title, if any, of the document or collection
Individual author (editor or compiler), if given
Report number or any other identification necessary or useful in finding the specific document
Publisher, if different from issuing body

Footnote or Endnote (N):

1. Firstname Lastname, “Title of Document” (source type identifier, Place of Publication, year of publication), page number(s).

Corresponding Bibliographic Entry (B):

Legal Materials and Government Documents

Legal materials and other government documents should be cited using footnotes, endnotes, and/or citation sentences (with clauses including the same information required in a footnote). Print copies of the sources tend to be preferred to digital, though verified digital sources are acceptable.

When writing for law journals or other legal publications, these sources are not usually required to be cited in a bibliography or on a references page. Citation sentences alone are an acceptable form of citation, so long as the document has only a few legal citations (for more information, see The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed., sections 14.269-305 and 15.58.)

Court Decisions and Cases

Notes for court cases should include case name, number, volume number, abbreviated name(s) of reporter, and, in parentheses, the abbreviated name of the court and the date. Case names written in full are typeset in roman, while in subsequent shortened citations the short form of the case name is italicized. Citations are assumed to refer to decisions as a whole unless a particular page is cited using “at” (see example 3 below). The CMOS offers the following note examples in section 14.276:

United States v. Christmas, 222 F.3d 141, 145 (4th Cir. 2000).

Profit Sharing Plan v. Mbank Dallas, N.A., 683 F. Supp. 592 (N.D. Tex. 1988).

Christmas, 222 F.3d at 145. The court also noted that under United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989), police may briefly detain a person without probable cause if the officer believes criminal activity “may be afoot.” Christmas, 222 F.3d at 143; see also Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

Theses and Dissertations

Thesis and dissertation titles appear in quotation marks, not in italics, but are cited in all other ways like books. Include name, title, type of document, academic institution, and date, in that order. If the item was found online, include a URL or DOI (see guidelines for citing online sources ).

1. Tara Hostetler, “Bodies at War: Bacteriology and the Carrier Narratives of ‘Typhoid Mary’” (master’s thesis, Florida State University, 2007), 15-16.

Hostetler, Tara. "Bodies at War: Bacteriology and the Carrier Narratives of ‘Typhoid Mary.’” Master’s thesis, Florida State University, 2007.

Letters and Unpublished Manuscripts

Letters and unpublished materials that have not been archived may be cited like other unpublished material, with information on location replaced by wording such as “private collection of Trinity Overmyer” or “in the author’s possession.” The location is not mentioned.

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / How to Cite Sources / How to Cite a Case Study in APA, MLA, or Chicago

How to Cite a Case Study in APA, MLA, or Chicago

When citing a case study, the format in MLA and APA is similar to that of a report, and in Chicago style, it is similar to that of a book. For all three citation styles, you will need the name of the author(s), the title of the case study, the year it was published, the publishing organization/publisher, and URL (if applicable). The templates and examples below will demonstrate how to cite a case study in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles.

Author Last Name, Author First Name. Title of Case Study . Edition (if applicable), volume number (if applicable), Publisher, year of publication, URL without http:// or https:// (if applicable).

Hill, Linda A., et al. HCL Technologies (A). Rev. edition, Harvard Business School, 2008, www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=34784.

In-text Citation:

(Author Last Name(s) page #)

(Hill et al. 8)

Author Last Name, Author Initial. (Publication Year). Title of Case Study (Case # if applicable). Publishing Organization. URL

Hill, L., Khanna, T., & Stecker, E. (2008). HCL Technologies (A) (Case 408-004). Harvard Business School. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=34784

(Author Last Name, Publication Year)

(Hill et al., 2008)

Notes-bibliography style

Author Last Name, First Name. Title of the Case Study . Publishing City: Publishing Organization, Publication Year. URL.

Hill, Linda A., Tarun Khanna, and Emily Stecker. HCL Technologies (A). Boston: Harvard Business School, 2008. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=34784.

1. Author First Name Last Name, Title of the Case Study (Publishing City: Publishing Organization, Publication Year), URL.

1. Linda A. Hill, Tarun Khanna, and Emily Stecker, HCL Technologies (A) ( Boston: Harvard Business School, 2008), https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=34784.

Author-date style

Author Last Name, First Name. Publication Year. Title of the Case Study . Publishing City: Publishing Organization. URL.

Hill, Linda A., Tarun Khanna, and Emily Stecker. 2008. HCL Technologies (A). Boston: Harvard Business School. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=34784.

In-text citation:

(Author Last Name Publication Date)

(Holl, Khanna, and Stecker 2008)

Citation Guides

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In-text Citations
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NWU Law House Style Referencing Guide

Introduction
Bibliography
Chapters in books
Conference contributions
Theses and dissertations
Journal articles
Newspaper articles
Other literature resources
Legislation
International law instruments
South African government publications
Internet sources
LAW PDF Reference Guide

Other styles

NWU Harvard Referencing Guide
APA Referencing Guide

If reported Footnote 1 President of the Republic of South Africa v Hugo 1997 4 SA 1 (CC) para 15.

Bibliography (under the heading "Case law") President of the Republic of South Africa v Hugo 1997 4 SA 1 (CC)

If unreported Footnote 1 Free State Cheetahs (Pty) Limited v Mapoe (O) (unreported) case number 4587/2010 of 29 September 2010 para 4. Bibliography (under the heading "Case law") Free State Cheetahs (Pty) Limited v Mapoe (O) (unreported) case number 4587/2010 of 29 September 2010

(a) The name of a case must be provided in full in the bibliography . Non-essential information such as NO, NNO, and others, and another, amicus curiae must be left out (in the text, footnotes and the bibliography).

(b) In footnote references to cases the specific page number(s) or paragraph number(s) must be provided, for example: Bareki v Gencor Ltd 2006 1 SA 432 (T) 436A-D or para 123. Please see General (J) of this document for the abbreviation of "paragraph" and "paragraphs".

(c) The full reference must be provided when a court case is referenced for the first time (either in the text or in a footnote). After the first full reference it may be abbreviated in brackets whereafter only the abbreviated form should be used in all footnotes and in the text, for example: Bareki v Gencor Ltd 2006 1 SA 432 (T) (hereafter the Bareki case).

(d) The court’s abbreviation should be in the same language as the text of the document.

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Citing and referencing legal resources using Harvard

An explanation about uk case law.

What is a neutral citation?
Cases with neutral citations

UK cases without a neutral citation

UK legislation
European Union resources
Other legal resources

The United Kingdom courts formulate law in the form of court decisions, i.e. case law. The most important cases are written up by a court reporter: these are called 'law reports'.

Cite them right gives advice on how to cite and reference law reports (cases) . There is a distinction made between:

Citing and referencing cases from 2001 onwards, where a neutral citation is available for the case.
Pre-2001 cases or any other case where there is no neutral citation .

What is a neutral citation and how do you know a case has got one?

From approximately 2001 onwards, the courts started to allocate 'neutral citations' to cases. Neutral citations enable people to find cases online more easily. Each neutral citation is made up of:

an abbreviation for the relevant court (e.g. UKSC for the Supreme Court; EWCA Crim for the Court of Appeal Criminal Division)
a number (i.e. the number 4 would mean the fourth case heard in that particular court that year)

As a general rule, if you are looking at a case on the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) webpage , the neutral citation (if there is one) will be listed at the top right hand side of the page. See for example the 2001 Court of Appeal case of Mills v Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food . You will see at the top right of the BAILII webpage that this case has a neutral citation of [2001] EWCA Civ 1346.

This neutral citation will be useful for you when you are constructing your reference (see section below entitled 'UK cases with neutral citations').

UK cases with neutral citations

If a case has a neutral citation, Cite them right says that you should include in your reference list: 'Name of the case' (year) court, case number. Database or website [Online]. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

In-text citation: A recent case ( ' R (on the application of Newby Foods Ltd) v. Food Standards Agency', 2017) states that...

Reference list: 'R (on the application of Newby Foods Ltd) v. Food Standards Agency' (2017) Court of Appeal, Civil Division, case 431. Westlaw [Online]. Available at: https://legalresearch.westlaw.co.uk (Accessed: 24 August 2018).

Cases without a neutral citation tend to be cases which pre-date the year 2001, i.e. older cases.

In your reference, you need to include 'Name of case' (year) title of law report , volume number, page numbers.

In-text citation: It was decided in the case of 'Bibby Cheshire v. Golden Wonder Ltd' (1972) that...

Reference list: 'Bibby Cheshire v. Golden Wonder Ltd' (1972) Weekly Law Reports , 1, pp. 1487-1492.

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Cite a court case in MLA style

Select style:
Archive material
Chapter of an edited book
Conference proceedings
Dictionary entry
Dissertation
DVD, video, or film
E-book or PDF
Edited book
Encyclopedia article
Government publication
Music or recording
Online image or video
Presentation
Press release
Religious text

Use the following template or our MLA Citation Generator to cite a court case. For help with other source types, like books, PDFs, or websites, check out our other guides. To have your reference list or bibliography automatically made for you, try our free citation generator .

Reference list

Place this part in your bibliography or reference list at the end of your assignment.

In-text citation

Place this part right after the quote or reference to the source in your assignment.

Popular MLA Citation Guides

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Other MLA Citation Guides

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TikTok Sues U.S. Government Over Law Forcing Sale or Ban

The social media company and its Chinese parent, ByteDance, sued to challenge the new law, saying it violated users’ First Amendment rights.

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An elevated walkway stretches from the foreground to a third-floor entrance to a glass-walled building. A TikTok sign marks the entrance.

By Sapna Maheshwari and David McCabe

TikTok sued the federal government on Tuesday over a new law that would force its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States, stoking a battle over national security and free speech that is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

TikTok said the law violated the First Amendment by effectively removing an app that millions of Americans use to share their views and communicate freely. It also argued that a divestiture was “simply not possible,” especially within the law’s 270-day timeline, pointing to difficulties such as Beijing’s refusal to sell a key feature that powers TikTok in the United States.

“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide,” the company said in the 67-page petition, which initiated the lawsuit. “There is no question: The act will force a shutdown of TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025.”

TikTok is battling for its survival in the United States, with the fight set to play out primarily in courts over the next few months. The battle pits Congress’s national security concerns about the social media app’s ties to China against TikTok’s argument that a sale or ban would violate the First Amendment free-speech rights of its users and hurt small businesses that owe their livelihood to the platform. The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court.

The issue is particularly tricky in an election year, when President Biden and lawmakers are facing potential blowback from users of the popular app. The app, which says it has 170 million monthly users in the United States, is used for everything from sharing viral dances to political commentary. It’s become knitted into people’s lives, particularly for those who make a living on the platform as content creators.

Under the new law , which President Biden signed on April 24, TikTok has nine months, or a year if the president gives it an extension, to find a non-Chinese buyer. If it doesn’t, the law requires U.S. app stores and web hosting services to stop working with it — essentially banning it.

At the heart of the case will be lawmakers’ intent to defend the United States from what they and some experts say is a national security threat; they assert that the Chinese government could lean on ByteDance to turn over sensitive TikTok user data or use the app to spread propaganda. But the mandate to sell or block the app could result in changes to TikTok’s content policies and shape what users are able to freely share on the platform, potentially violating their free speech rights, according to legal experts.

“These are hugely consequential questions being dealt with in an unprecedented manner,” said Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School who has done research on the First Amendment and the internet. “TikTok basically throws the First Amendment sink at this challenge.”

TikTok filed its suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, arguing that selling its U.S. operations was not “commercially, technologically, or legally feasible.” A part of that argument hinges on how TikTok and its competitors are global in nature and content is accessible across country borders, with international videos as part of its appeal.

It is also impossible to move the app’s underlying coding to a new owner, TikTok argued, adding that it would take years for a new set of engineers to familiarize themselves with that code to develop and maintain the platform. In addition, the engineers would need access to ByteDance software to keep TikTok functioning, which the new law prohibits, the company argued.

TikTok’s success also hinges on its recommendation algorithm, which helps surface tailored content to users, something the Chinese government has said it would not sell, the suit notes.

TikTok pointed to the billions of dollars it has already spent to address potential security risks in the past four years, an effort known as Project Texas, as well as a draft 90-page national security agreement that made “extraordinary” commitments to the U.S. government. TikTok has separated its U.S. user data from the rest of the company’s operations and provided third-party oversight of its content recommendations.

The company said in its suit that it agreed to give the government a “shutdown option” that would allow it to suspend TikTok in the United States if the company violated parts of its agreement.

Anupam Chander, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Rebooting Social Media at Harvard who has publicly opposed the law, said that he was among experts TikTok contacted on Monday for an advance briefing on the filing. He said Project Texas is likely to play a key role, and whether TikTok can persuade the judge that it was a reasonably available alternative that addressed the government’s concerns.

“The real question that remains that I haven’t seen an answer to is, what more would the government have wanted?” Mr. Chander said. “We’ve never heard why Project Texas was insufficient, publicly.”

Read TikTok’s legal challenge

National security concerns about TikTok are “speculative” and fall short of what’s required to justify violating First Amendment rights, the company argued in its suit, adding that President Biden and other members of Congress’s use of the platform undermines claims that it’s a threat.

TikTok asked the court to issue a declaratory judgment saying that the law violated the Constitution and to issue an order that would stop Attorney General Merrick B. Garland from enforcing it. The next step is for the government to respond.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment on potential litigation.

The government is likely to defend the law by saying it is calling for a sale, not a ban. The government will probably also need to make a strong case that its national security concerns justify the limitation on speech if TikTok is banned.

The Justice Department, which was involved in drafting the law, weighed in on language that would help the Biden administration best defend it in court.

“They’re going to have to support their concerns with evidence in a way that they haven’t really done, at least in the court of public opinion, and they’re going to have to show that their concerns can’t be addressed in narrower ways,” Ramya Krishnan, a senior lawyer at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in an interview before the petition was filed.

The institute expects to support a challenge to the law, she said. The American Civil Liberties Union has also said it opposed the law and may help with litigation.

TikTok’s suit was filed a day after its chief executive , Shou Chew, appeared with his wife at the Met Gala, where he was an honorary chair.

Fears of a potential security threat from TikTok have escalated in the last year and a half, prompting bans of the app on federal devices and those issued by some city and state governments. Still, the app has continued to grow in popularity, shaping culture and becoming a source of news for younger Americans as well as a place where an expanding cohort of content creators make their living.

TikTok has had success in challenging similar state and federal actions attempting to restrict its operations, though this law differs in its broad support from Congress and the Biden administration.

Last year, Montana passed a law that would have barred TikTok from operating in the state as of Jan. 1, saying the company presented a security threat to its citizens. A group of TikTok users filed a lawsuit funded by the app, saying the law violated their First Amendment rights and outstripped the state’s legal authority. TikTok also filed a separate lawsuit within a week, arguing that the legislation violated the First Amendment.

In November, a federal judge blocked the Montana ban , saying it most likely violated the First Amendment and a clause that gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.

Former President Donald J. Trump also tried to ban or force the sale of TikTok in 2020 with an executive order citing similar security concerns. Federal courts blocked the Commerce Department from carrying out his plan in part on First Amendment grounds, with one judge adding it would shut down a “platform for expressive activity.” Another judge said the government most likely overstepped its legal authority and “acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner by failing to consider obvious alternatives.”

Sapna Maheshwari reports on TikTok, technology and emerging media companies. She has been a business reporter for more than a decade. Contact her at [email protected] . More about Sapna Maheshwari

David McCabe covers tech policy. He joined The Times from Axios in 2019. More about David McCabe

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Speaker Mike Johnson assails Trump’s felony trial in remarkable visit outside courthouse

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has become the highest-level Republican to attend Donald Trump’s hush money trial, a signal of the former president’s grip on the GOP as the country heads toward the November election.

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, center, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy listen as former President Donald Trump, left, talks with reporters as he arrives at Manhattan criminal court in New York, on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Justin Lane/Pool Photo via AP)

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U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson arrives at a press conference across the street from the Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks at a press conference across the street from the Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks at a news conference across the street from the Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York.(AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

Former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Monday, May 13, 2024. (Mark Peterson/New York Magazine via AP, Pool)

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) listens as former President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he arrives for his trial at Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson assailed the hush money case against Donald Trump Tuesday as an illegitimate “sham,” becoming the highest-ranking Republican to show up at court, embrace the former president’s claims of political persecution and attack the U.S. system of justice.

It was a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker amplifying Trump’s defense and turning the Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy.

Johnson, who is second in line for the presidency , called the court system “corrupt.”

Outside the New York courthouse, he decried “this ridiculous prosecution that is not about justice.” He said, “It’s all about politics.”

AP AUDIO: Speaker Mike Johnson’s appearance at Trump’s felony trial marks a remarkable moment in US politics

AP correspondent Julie Walker reports House Speaker Mike Johnson lends his support to Donald Trump at court today.

The speaker is leading a growing list of Republican lawmakers who are criticizing the American judicial system as they rally to Trump’s side, appearing at the courthouse to defend the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Trump is accused of having arranged secret payments to a porn actress to hide negative stories during his successful 2016 campaign for president.

With Trump stuck in court and barred by a judge’s gag order from criticizing witnesses or certain elements of the case, Johnson and the lawmakers are taking it upon themselves to attack the proceedings, now in a fourth week of witness testimony. They’re using the trial as a de facto campaign stop as they work to return the former president to the White House.

FILE - Sunlight illuminates the exterior of the North Dakota House of Representatives and the state Capitol tower in Bismarck, N.D., on Nov. 10, 2023. Months after it won a lawsuit over legislative boundaries, North Dakota is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its victory, baffling others involved in the state’s redistricting fights and prompting some legal experts to call the state’s action a potential assault on the Voting Rights Act. (AP Photo/Jack Dura, File)

In portraying the case against Trump as politically motivated, the Republicans are also laying the groundwork to dismiss its significance should the jury convict, and for potential challenges to the fall election, a rematch with President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

Johnson was a chief architect of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential results ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, mob assault on the U.S. Capitol, and last week he called the hush money trial and the other election-year cases against Trump a “borderline criminal conspiracy.”

“It is election interference,” Johnson said Tuesday, insisting he was appearing on his own to back Trump, whom he called a friend. “And the American people are not going to let this stand.”

What to know about Trump’s hush money trial:

Follow the AP’s latest updates on Michael Cohen’s cross-examination.
A guide to terms used in the Trump trial.
Trump is the first ex-president on criminal trial. Here’s what to know about the hush money case.
Trump is facing four criminal indictments, and a civil lawsuit. You can track all of the cases here.

Unlike other Republicans showing up to show their support, Johnson did not enter the courtroom where Trump is on trial, but dashed back to Washington to open the House chamber for the day.

Later at the Capitol, Johnson repeated the Republican Party’s claims of the justice system being “weaponized” against Trump and said Americans are “losing faith” in it.

Also with Trump on Tuesday were U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — both considered possible vice presidential candidates — as well as former GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, one of Trump’s current top surrogates.

U.S. Sens. JD Vance of Ohio and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama were among those who attended court on Monday .

Trump’s campaign has lined up allies in recent days to appear at the New York courthouse to attack witnesses and others whom Trump is barred by a judge’s gag order from criticizing himself.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Monday that he appeared last week at the invitation of Trump senior advisor Susie Wiles. The campaign has said others volunteered to come to New York.

“The Democrats are using the court system to go after and prosecute, criminally, a political opponent — that’s a crime,” Scott said over the weekend on Fox News. “They’re just thugs trying to stop Trump from being able to run for president.”

In the short term, the Republicans’ presence at the courthouse and comments critical of the process have let Trump and his allies amplify their message without risking another explicit violation of the gag order. Trump’s attorneys have challenged the gag order as unconstitutional, but an appeals court upheld it on Tuesday.

Johnson specifically attacked the credibility of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer who began his second day of testimony in the former president’s hush money trial. And others, too.

He criticized Cohen as “a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge,” said lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo “recently received over $10,000 in payments from the Democratic National Committee” and said the daughter of Judge Juan M. Merchan has made “millions of dollars” doing online fundraising for Democrats.

Colangelo, who joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2022 and previously worked in the U.S. Justice Department in the Biden administration, did paid “political consulting” work for the DNC in 2018, according to federal campaign finance records.

The Republican speaker, who is wholly dependent on support from Trump to keep the gavel, has aimed to strengthen their alliance, particularly as Johnson has come under fire from his own caucus in the House, including a failed effort at his removal by a fellow Trump backer, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Johnson made an appearance with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club last month to announce new House legislation to require proof of citizenship for voting , echoing Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats are abetting immigrants entering the U.S. illegally to swing elections — another potential route for Republican challenges to the 2024 election.

There isn’t any indication that noncitizens vote in significant numbers in federal elections or that they will in the future.

And Johnson joined Trump on stage for the Republican National Committee’s gala at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, praising the presumptive presidential nominee and saying House Republicans fully expect to ride Trump’s coattails to their own re-elections to keep the majority hold on the chamber.

Johnson has been using the pulpit of the speaker’s office in Washington to attack the U.S. judicial system, criticizing the courts as biased against the former president, claiming the case is politically motivated by Democrats and insisting Trump has done nothing wrong.

The speaker has demurred when asked if the 2020 election was legitimate, and in a departure from the tradition of trust and adherence in U.S. election systems, Johnson and other Republicans have hedged when asked if they will accept the election results of 2024.

Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

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IMAGES

How to trace legal cases
Introduction
Citing A Legal Case Apa
Legal cases
The Basics
OSCOLA

VIDEO

Tyrant cop demands I obey. INITIAL REFUSAL to cite law being violated. 1st AMENDMENT FAIL
The ImClone Stock Insider-Trading Case
Fair Credit Reporting Act in Comcast Corporation’s Case
Brandenburg v. Ohio Case: Summary, Outline, and Results
The Family and Medical Leave Act in the DaPrato v. MWRA Case
How to Transform a 1st person case essay to a 3rd person case essay

COMMENTS

How to Cite Court Cases in APA Style
Citations for court cases refer to reporters, the publications in which cases are documented. To cite a court case or decision, list the name of the case, the volume and abbreviated name of the reporter, the page number, the name of the court, the year, and optionally the URL.
APA Legal References
State statutes are published in their own state-specific publication. The elements of a statute reference list entry are as follows, in order: name of the act. title, source (check the Bluebook for abbreviations), and section number of the statute; the publication date of the compilation you used to find the statute, in parentheses.
Citing Cases
Table 1: A list of (1) reporters* and reporter abbreviations, (2) courts and court abbreviations, and (3) preferred sources to cite for federal courts and each state's courts. Table 6: Abbreviations for terms used in case names (e.g., America [n] = Am.) Table 7: Abbreviations for court names that you would use in the event a court abbreviation ...
Referencing & Citations Guide For Law Essays
The Law Reports, the Weekly Law Reports or the All England Reports can also be cited. For an unreported case, cite the relevant notice in the Official Journal (OJ). If not yet reported in the OJ, then cite the case number, case name, court, and date of judgment. European Commission competition decisions. Aluminium Cartel [1985] OJ L92/1
APA Style 7th Edition: Citing Your Sources
Court Cases: Title or name of the case is written in standard type for reference entry (italics for in-text citation) Legal Materials include: federal testimony, hearings, bills, resolutions, reports, and related documents. Use this format for enacted bill or resolution not signed into law
FAQ: How do I cite a legal case (court decisions) in APA Style?
Citation. The court decisions are often found in publications called case reporters. You will need to identify the volume number, the name of the reporter, and the first page of the case. The name of the reporter will be abbreviated. For example, F. Supp. for Federal Supplement (decisions from the U.S. District Court are published in the ...
Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style
In the names of court cases, use the abbreviation v. consistently, regardless of which abbreviation is used in the version of the work you are citing. To determine the name of a court case, use only the name of the first party that appears on either side of "v." or "vs." in your source; if the name is a personal name, use only the surname.
LibGuides: Referencing and citations
In a nutshell. The components of a typical case citation are the case name, the neutral citation (where appropriate) and the law report citation. Use italics for the name of the case, with an unpunctuated italic v to separate the names of adverse parties. A comma separates the neutral citation and the law report citation.
Case Law & Legislation
Remember - do not use in-text citations for case law or legislation. Rather, mention the case or legislation in the written text in full the first time and then you can use the abbreviated name for the rest of your essay. The reference list should have separate sections for cases and legislation where you list cases or Acts referred to in the ...
Basic Case Citation
In court documents (the former examples), a full case name is generally italicized or underlined. For a law review article footnote (the latter example), such as a law review article, the full case name is not underlined or italicized.. In its Quick Style Guide, The Bluebook provides some online examples to illustrate how to cite commonly used sources in accordance with the Whitepages, which ...
Legal Citation: Citing Case Law
Case law is law established by judicial decision in cases. When citing to a printed law reporter, the traditional form of legal citation requires these elements: case name (also known as the style of cause) in italics. v to separate names (indicates language of case is English) in italics. year of decision in round brackets followed by a comma ...
Cite A Court case in Harvard style
Cite A Court case in Harvard style. Use the following template or our Harvard Referencing Generator to cite a court case. For help with other source types, like books, PDFs, or websites, check out our other guides. To have your reference list or bibliography automatically made for you, try our free citation generator.
Library Guides: Citing and referencing for Law: General guidance
It is important to cite and reference your sources in any work you produce for your assignments. Referencing is a way of acknowledging that you have used the ideas and written material belonging to another author. It demonstrates that you have undertaken an appropriate literature search and that you have carried out appropriate reading. It ...
A Quick Guide to OSCOLA Referencing
Revised on 5 May 2022. The Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) is a referencing style used by students and academics in law. OSCOLA referencing places citations in footnotes, which are marked in the text with footnote numbers: The judge referred to the precedent established by Caulfield v Baldwin. 1.
Citing Cases in Exams
When you cite (not site) a case in law you are stating the authority for a point of law. You can't cite a case and forget the name of the case since the very act of citing the case involves stating the name of the case. Your scenario seems to be precisely the same as the one I mentioned in the initial post, namely one where you can remember ...
Legal, Public and Unpublished Materials
Legal Materials and Government Documents. Legal materials and other government documents should be cited using footnotes, endnotes, and/or citation sentences (with clauses including the same information required in a footnote). Print copies of the sources tend to be preferred to digital, though verified digital sources are acceptable.
How to Cite a Case Study in APA, MLA or Chicago
When citing a case study, the format in MLA and APA is similar to that of a report, and in Chicago style, it is similar to that of a book. ... Proofreading Online Spell Checker How to Write an Expository Essay How to Write a Persuasive Essay How to Write an Argumentative Essay How to Write a Research Paper How to Write an Essay Parts of a Paper ...
Citing and referencing legal resources using Harvard
UK statutes. A statute is another name for an Act of Parliament. As explained in Cite them right UK statutes (Acts of Parliament), you will need to reference a statute in the following way: Title of Act year, chapter number. Available at: URL (Accessed: date). In-text citation: The legislation (Food Standards Act 1999) states that... Reference list: Food Standards Act 1999, c. 28.
How to Cite Sources
To quote a source, copy a short piece of text word for word and put it inside quotation marks. To paraphrase a source, put the text into your own words. It's important that the paraphrase is not too close to the original wording. You can use the paraphrasing tool if you don't want to do this manually.
LibGuides: NWU Law House Style Referencing Guide: Case law
number 4587/2010 of 29 September 2010 para 4. Bibliography (under the heading "Case law") Free State Cheetahs (Pty) Limited v Mapoe (O) (unreported) case number 4587/2010 of 29 September 2010. (a) The name of a case must be provided in full in the bibliography. Non-essential information such as NO, NNO, and others, and another, amicus curiae ...
UK case law
The United Kingdom courts formulate law in the form of court decisions, i.e. case law. The most important cases are written up by a court reporter: these are called 'law reports'. Cite them right gives advice on how to cite and reference law reports (cases). There is a distinction made between: Citing and referencing cases from 2001 onwards ...
Cite a court case in MLA style
Cite a court case in MLA style. Use the following template or our MLA Citation Generator to cite a court case. For help with other source types, like books, PDFs, or websites, check out our other guides. To have your reference list or bibliography automatically made for you, try our free citation generator.
New Zealand Law Style Guide
(iv) Essays and chapters in edited books. For subsequent references to the same essay or chapter in an edited book, use the same style as for subsequent references to texts and articles. For references to a different essay or chapter in the same edited book, cite the details of the edited book again in full in accordance with rule 6.2.6(c).
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Kendrick Lamar
City is back up, it's a must, we outside, ayy. [Chorus] They not like us, they not like us, they not like us. They not like us, they not like us, they not like us. [Verse 3] Once upon a time, all ...