{"id":461,"date":"2015-09-08T18:18:31","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T18:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/?p=461"},"modified":"2021-12-11T18:12:55","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T18:12:55","slug":"bluebook-20th-ed-and-restatements-model-codes-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/?p=461","title":{"rendered":"Bluebook (20th ed.) and Restatements, Model Codes, etc."},"content":{"rendered":"

Prior to publication of the new Bluebook<\/em>, law journals, lawyers, and judges were in pretty close agreement on how to cite a Restatement section (e.g.<\/em>,\u00a0Restatement (Second) of Torts<\/span>\u00a0\u00a7 46 cmt. j (1965) [as cited in the May 2015 issue of the Harvard Law Review<\/em>] or\u00a0Restatement (Second) of Contracts \u00a7 349, cmt. a (1981) [as cited in an Aug. 2015 decision of the Seventh Circuit]). \u00a0Journals put the titles in large and small caps. \u00a0Lawyers and judges didn’t. \u00a0Furthermore, consistent with their treatment of other static material, many lawyers and judges left off the date element. \u00a0In an era in which\u00a0briefs are held to a maximum word count<\/a>, why include the redundant “(1965)” or “(1981)”? \u00a0The Bluebook<\/em>\u00a0reflected that consensus. \u00a0Its prescribed formats for citations to provisions in Uniform Codes, Model Acts, the federal sentencing guidelines, and the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct were consistent with it. \u00a0See The Bluebook<\/em> R. 12.9.5 (19th ed. 2010).<\/p>\n

Without warning the 20th edition of The Bluebook<\/em>\u00a0changed that. Revised rule 12.9.4 would add a new component to all such citations \u2013\u00a0namely, the institutional source of the work. \u00a0The new rule requires that the date parenthetical include the source’s name, abbreviated. \u00a0That means adding “Am. Law Inst.” (3 words) to Restatement citations, “Unif. Law Comm’n” (3 words) to most Uniform Code citations but “Am. Law Inst. & Unif. Law Comm’n” \u00a0(7 words) in the case of the U.C.C., and “Am. Bar Ass’n” (3 words) to Model Rules citations. \u00a0 To what end? \u00a0Does the additional element aid “the reader to efficiently locate the cited source”? The preface to the new edition simply notes the revision and makes vague reference to “citation principles”. \u00a0It furnishes no rationale.<\/p>\n

The preface does, however, credit two individuals for “valuable advice and assistance in revising this\u00a0rule”. \u00a0Their identities furnish a clue. \u00a0One is Richard Revesz, identified by The Bluebook<\/em> as dean, as he was at N.Y.U. Law School from 2002-2013. \u00a0However, since 2014 Revesz has been Director of the American Law Institute or ALI.<\/a> \u00a0The other individual, Professor Robert Sitkoff of the Harvard Law School faculty, is a member of the ALI Council (its governing board) and a Uniform Laws Commissioner<\/a>. \u00a0I have little doubt that the two of them pressed for the\u00a0attachment of the America Law Institute’s name to all Restatement citations, with equal treatment for entities issuing uniform laws, model rules, etc. \u00a0In a \u00a0process as opaque as that leading up to\u00a0revision of The Bluebook<\/em>\u00a0and with law students as the ultimate arbiters, it is not\u00a0surprising that Revesz and Sitkoff\u00a0prevailed. \u00a0Had the proposed change been floated for public comment, it probably would not have survived.<\/p>\n

Will the change stick? \u00a0Most if not all law journals will blindly implement the revision. \u00a0With its commitment to follow The Bluebook<\/em> in lockstep<\/a> the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation<\/em> seems certain to as well. \u00a0Will lawyers and judges comply? \u00a0Even in those jurisdictions that purport to require that citations in briefs conform to The<\/em>\u00a0Bluebook<\/em>, I have my doubts. \u00a0The revision\u00a0has created a very interesting test of The Bluebook<\/em>‘s influence\u00a0on citation practice within\u00a0the legal profession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prior to publication of the new Bluebook, law journals, lawyers, and judges were in pretty close agreement on how to cite a Restatement section (e.g.,\u00a0Restatement (Second) of Torts\u00a0\u00a7 46 cmt. j (1965) [as cited in the May 2015 issue of the Harvard Law Review] or\u00a0Restatement (Second) of Contracts \u00a7 349, cmt. a (1981) [as cited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,8],"tags":[35,34],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alwd","category-bluebook","tag-alwd","tag-bluebook"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}