Citing and Accessing U.S. Law

The Bluebook has long packed two books, aimed at two distinct markets, between its bright blue covers. One is a citation guide applicable to academic writing about law (of the sort done by law professors and their students); the second, a citation manual for lawyers. The latter began as 19 light blue pages of “Practitioner Notes” at the beginning of the 343-page Fifteenth Edition, published in 1991. The same edition’s state-by-state table of abbreviations for case reports, statutes, and administrative materials introduced a distinction between the format to be used in documents submitted to the jurisdiction’s own courts and “all other documents.” In the latter case, the editors had been persuaded that there was no need to cite “official state reporters”; a citation to the West Publishing Company’s regional reporter would suffice. By the Eighteenth Edition (2015), the guide’s section for practitioners had grown to 41 pages (out of 415). These were denominated “Bluepages” and included 19 pages of tables, providing jurisdiction-specific citation rules and style guides. In the Twenty-Second Edition, just published, there are 62 Bluepages in a volume of 354 pages, plus index.

Both Bluepages and white ones are attentive to publication practices and related citation rules of individual jurisdictions. State courts with rules establishing “public domain citation” formats are identified; their formats, described. However, the student law review editors who prepare this influential manual, including its Bluepages, appear manifestly less willing to attend to advice from practitioners and to the evolving citation norms exhibited in professional writing of lawyers and judges.

In 2018, appellate lawyer and legal writing scholar, Jack Metzler published an influential article on legal citation. It both noted and argued for the emerging professional practice of removing all the markings that detailed the places in a quoted passage embedded within another quotation where the case of a letter had been modified or words, a citation, or a footnote had been omitted. Substituting for such specificity, a concluding parenthetical “(cleaned up)” flagged the presence of one or more alterations of this type. By doing so, it invited any reader concerned about the changes to consult the cited and quoted source. Use of the “(cleaned up)” parenthetical carried the writer’s representation that the changes to the embedded quotation did not alter its meaning. Metzler’s article documented the spread of “(cleaned up)” citations in judicial opinions (150 as of March 31, 2018) and noted its endorsement by the brief writing authority Bryan Garner. Metzler was even so bold as to point out where and how the parenthetical might be incorporated into The Bluebook.

Metzler’s article and the rapidly spreading use of “(cleaned up)” were ignored by the law review editors who prepared The Bluebook’s twenty-first edition in 2020. Nonetheless, its use continued to spread, albeit unevenly, among judges. Courts and lawyers appearing before them appreciated its effect on readability and word count. “Cleaned up” began to appear in court style guides.

Those charged by the nation’s law schools with teaching the craft of legal writing paid attention. Some expressed concern that their students would have difficulty confining the parenthetical to the narrow category of quotations specified by Meltzer. Others, viewing the, still uneven, judicial acceptance cautioned against using “(cleaned up)” until “court rules expressly allow[ed] for it.” The seventh edition of the guide to legal citation prepared by the Association of Legal Writing Directors, published in 2021, acknowledged “(cleaned up).” It urged students to check with their professor and young lawyers or law clerks, with their supervising attorney or judge before employing the parenthetical.

Finally, seven years on, the twenty-second edition of The Bluebook has recognized “(cleaned up).” But it has done so in the manner of a child, petulant over being told what to do. The latest Bluepages now authorize the “modification of quotations and citations for clarity” under the circumstances, Metzler stipulated, while rejecting his parenthetical label. Intimating that “(cleaned up)” lacks “a definite meaning in practice,” the Bluepages call for the use of “(citation modified)” in its place. The substitution is profoundly strange since in many, if not most, cases it is the content of the “cleaned up” quotation that is modified, not the citation. Thanks to the candor of an inside source, we have an explanation:

Some editors did not want to give the appearance that we were letting others dictate the rules to us, while others were worried if we did not make the change, The Bluebook would seem stuck in the past. … Eventually, the compromise position was to make “cleaned up” permissible for practitioners (the Bluepages) but impermissible for scholarship (the Whitepages).

OK. Then why reject the already established “(cleaned up)” designation?

Based on a sour interaction with Jack Metzler, [one of the four journals participating in The Bluebook] … did not want to use a term he coined. They also did not want it to seem like individual lawyers could dictate the terminology of citations to The Bluebook. They were willing to move forward with a similar parenthetical, but only … [if] a different term [were used].

The full article, “The Bluebook: An Insider’s Perspective” is well worth reading.