Archive for October, 2015

Make that “Advert.” not “Adver.”

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

For nineteen years The Bluebook has decreed that when the word “Advertising” appears in a case name it should be abbreviated as “Adver.”  The pairing of word and abbreviation first appeared in the sixteenth edition.  The codification at once captured the then prevailing professional practice and encouraged use of that abbreviation over the two common alternatives.  Those were: 1) to include the word in full or 2) to abbreviate it to coincide with the British informal term, rendering it “Advert.”

Inexplicably, the latest edition of The Bluebook has added a terminal “t”, embracing an approach it rejected in 1996. Henceforward, all who follow its mandate must cite:

  • City of Columbia v. Omni Outdoor Adver., Inc., 499 U.S. 365 (1991)
    • as
  • City of Columbia v. Omni Outdoor Advert., Inc., 499 U.S. 365 (1991)

Why make the change?  Successive editions of The Bluebook have regularly added new “mandatory” abbreviations. The T6 list of the sixteenth edition had 120 entries. In the nineteenth there were 144, including an entry for “County” (to be abbreviated “Cnty.”). This latest edition is the first, in my memory, to substitute new abbreviations for established ones. In addition to supplanting “Adver.” with “Advert.” it has replaced “Cnty.” with “Cty.” Neither change addresses a source of potential confusion. Neither is driven by professional citation practice.

A failure to proofread? Implausible. The most likely explanation lies in the increasingly proprietary claims of The Bluebook enterprise. Faced with a better teaching book, the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation, and with data sources and software packages that purport to deliver citations that conform to its rules its editors made a number of arbitrary changes. “Copy if you dare,” they seem to be saying. For those operating within the universe of law journal publication such arbitrary changes may be hard to resist. With lawyers and judges, they’ll largely be ignored.

 

2015 version of Introduction to Basic Legal Citation released

Thursday, October 1st, 2015

The latest edition of Introduction to Basic Legal Citation is now online at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/  with conformed ebook versions at: http://access-to-law.com/citation/. For those wanting the convenience of a direct download to a Kindle or Kindle app, the updated work is also available through the Kindle store. Only the latter carries a charge – $.99, the minimum Amazon will allow.

This year’s revisions include description of a number of changes in The Bluebook‘s approach to core citation issues reflected in its 2015 edition, flagging those that lack any basis in the writing of lawyers and judges. As is true every year, the tables and pages identifying and illustrating jurisdiction-specific citation norms for cases, statutes, and regulations have been carefully audited and, where necessary, updated.

Aimed at those who write as practicing legal professionals or are learning to do so, this resource leaves coverage of the distinctive format requirements and myriad potential sources cited in academic writing to The Bluebook (BB) and ALWD Guide to Legal Citation.  It contains detailed information on how judges and lawyers cite core legal materials in each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, furnishing examples, but none on how to cite statutes and regulations of the Czech Republic (BB at 353) or decisions of France’s Conseil d’État (BB 359).

As was true in years past, the revision process unearthed a number of policy issues that deserve discussion here. Some of them (such as how to cite Restatements) have already been addressed.