Formats legal citations per The Bluebook (21st ed.) using Bluepages practitioner conventions. Use when citing authority in court filings, checking citation format, drafting briefs or memoranda, or formatting a table of authorities.
Practitioner-format citation rules (Bluepages) for cases, statutes, rules, regulations, and secondary sources.
Most common pattern — full case citation with pincite:
Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456, 458 (9th Cir. 2020)
Structure: Party v. Party, Vol. Reporter Pg., Pincite (Court Year)
| Form | Pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Full | Party v. Party, Vol. Reporter Pg., Pincite (Court Year) | Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456, 458 (9th Cir. 2020) |
| Short | Party, Vol. Reporter at Pincite | Smith, 123 F.3d at 459 |
| Id. | Id. at Pincite | Id. at 460 |
| Subsequent history |
| Append with comma |
| Smith v. Jones, 123 F.3d 456 (9th Cir. 2020), aff'd, 540 U.S. 100 (2003) |
Key rules:
| Type | Example |
|---|---|
| Federal statute | 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2018) |
| State statute | Cal. Civ. Code § 1542 (West 2020) |
| U.S. Constitution | U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 |
| State constitution | Cal. Const. art. I, § 7 |
| Type | Example |
|---|---|
| Fed. R. Civ. P. | Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) |
| Fed. R. Evid. | Fed. R. Evid. 702 |
| Fed. R. App. P. | Fed. R. App. P. 28(a) |
| C.F.R. | 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j) (2020) |
| Fed. Reg. | 85 Fed. Reg. 12,345 (Mar. 2, 2020) |
| Type | Example |
|---|---|
| Restatement | Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90 (Am. L. Inst. 1981) |
| Treatise | 5 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1216 (3d ed. 2004) |
| Law review | Sunstein, On the Expressive Function of Law, 144 U. Pa. L. Rev. 2021, 2025 (1996) |
| A.L.R. | Annotation, Title, 100 A.L.R.5th 1 (2002) |
| Black's Law Dict. | Term, Black's Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024) |
| Signal | Use |
|---|---|
| [none] | Direct support — source states the proposition |
| See | Supports with inference required |
| See also | Additional, less direct support |
| Accord | Multiple sources state same rule |
| Cf. | Support by analogy |
| But see | Directly contrary |
| But cf. | Contrary by analogy |
| See generally | Background or general support |
Changes from original:
tags from frontmatter (not part of the spec — only name and description)