The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a style guide, prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. The Bluebook is compiled by the Harvard Law Review Association, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Currently, it is in its 18th edition. It is so named because its cover is blue.

Although The Bluebook is in its 18th edition, older editions continue to be useful. For example, Washington Court Rule 14(d) states that the "Seventeenth Edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is the basic citation resource for Washington appellate court opinions" except for specific instances noted elsewhere in the rule.

Alternative legal citation style guides exist, including the ALWD Citation Manual and the Maroonbook, used by journals published at the University of Chicago Law School. Many state courts have their own citation rules that take precedence over the Bluebook for documents filed with those courts. Some of the local rules are simple modifications to the Bluebook system, such as Maryland's requirement that citations to Maryland cases include a reference to the official Maryland reporter. In other states, notably New York, California, and Michigan, the local rules are so different from the Bluebook that they are codified in their own style guides.

[edit] Elements

The 18th edition of the Bluebook governs the style and formatting of various references and elements of a legal publication, including:

[edit] See also

• Legal citation signals

[edit] External links

• The Bluebook Official Site
• Introduction to legal citation