Local court rules (US)


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Alabama.
Alaska.
Arizona.
Arkansas.
California.
Notes on the California Citation Style.
Colorado.
Delaware.

Pennsylvania.
Washington.

Local Court Citation Rules

Alabama

Alabama does not post citation rules peculiar to the state.

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Local Court Citation Rules

Alaska

Alaska Sup. Ct. R. 11(a)(1).
Appellate briefs must contain ''citations to the official reports and editions where they may be found.... References to decisions of the United States Supreme Court shall be made by citations to both the U.S. Reports and the Lawyers' Edition of the United States Supreme Court Reports.

Note.
Parallel citations for US Supreme Court cases are required.

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Local Court Citation Rules

Arizona

Ariz. R. Civ. App. P. 13(a)(6).
Citations of authorities shall be to the volume and page number of the official reports and also when possible to the unofficial reporters and selected cases.

Parallel citations are preferred but not required.

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Local Court Citation Rules

Arkansas

Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 4-2(a)(7).
Citations of decisions of the Court which are officially reported must be from the official reports. All citations of decisions of any court must state the style of the case and the book and page in which the case is found. If the case is also reported by one or more unofficial publishers, these should also be cited, if possible.

Parallel citations are preferred but not required.

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Local Court Citation Rules

California
Cal. R. Ct. 313(c) & (e).

Parallel citations are permitted but not required.

LegalCitation provides limited support the California Citation Style. Case citations are formatted properly, but citations of statutory code will need to be edited.

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Local Court Citation Rules

Colorado

Colorado does not have a statute or rule directly addressing the correct style for legal citations in documents submitted to state courts.

Note that the Colorado Supreme Court numbers decisions by paragraph, thus permitting use of Neutral Citation format.

Parallel citations are permitted but not required.

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Local Court Citation Rules

Delaware

Del. Sup. Ct. R. 14(g).
For documents submitted to Delaware state courts, format citations in accordance with the Bluebook: Uniform System of Citation, with the following exceptions. (For LegalCitation, choose the Bluebook/Delaware Court citation style).

  • Information on the Court of decision, in citations to cases reported in the Atlantic Reporter, follows the case name (rather than being included in the date parenthetical, as in Bluebook and ALWD style).
    Bluebook format:
    Melson v. Allman, 244 A.2d 85 (Del. Supr. 1968).

    ALWD format:
    Melson v. Allman, 244 A.2d 85 (Del. Supr. 1968).

    Delaware courts:
    Melson v. Allman, Del. Supr., 244 A.2d 85 (1968).

  • Information on the Court of decision, in citations of unreported or pending cases in the Delaware court system, follows the case name. Names of presiding authorities are included in the citation.
    Bluebook format:
    Schreiber v. Carney, No. 6202 (Del. Ch. Dec. 8, 1982).

    ALWD format:
    Schreiber v. Carney, No. 6202 (Del. Ch. Dec. 8, 1982).

    Delaware courts:
    Schreiber v. Carney, Del. Ch., No. 6202, Hartnett, V.A. (Dec. 8, 1982).

Parallel citations are permitted but not required.

Note that LegalCitation provides limited support for the Bluebook/Delaware citation style.

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Local Court Citation Rules

Pennsylvania
Under construction.

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Local Court Citation Rules

Washington
The rules for this state are posted on the Washington State Courts website.

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Local Court Rules

The California Style Manual for Legal Citations
The following rules are based on the California Style Manual. This is the book you should refer to when citing statutes and cases in state court. The book was produced and approved by the California Supreme Court, and is considered the standard practice and "official" reference for citing and publishing Official Reports of California. Although it is also acceptable to use the Harvard "Blue Book," it should be referred to when citing cases in federal court actions or actions in other states.

Herting v. Smith (1971) 5 Cal.3d 469

Carlisle v. Kanaywer (1972) 24 Cal.App.3d 587 [93 Cal.Rptr. 72]

McLaughlin v. Cheshire (D.C. Cir. 1982) 676 F.2d 855

In re Marriage of King (1983) 150 Cal.App.3d 304, 306 et seq.

Citations are normally placed within parentheses regardless of whether they appear in the middle or at the end of a sentence, unless they are an integral part of the sentence (see example). In older reports, citations often appeared without parentheses. However, the modern practice favors parentheses and the California Reports invariably use them.

Code of Civil Procedure section 410

Probate Code section 236, subdivision (b)

(Gov. Code, § 3752)

(Prob. Code, § 1651, subd. (a))

(Bus. & Prof. Code, § 16700 et seq.)

(Code Civ. Proc., §§ 2031, 2034)

(Elec. Code, § 11503, subds. (d), (e), (f) & (g))

See Witkin, California Criminal Procedure, section 13, page 15.

(4 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (8th ed. 1974) § 800, p. 3097.)

See 3 California Commercial Law (Cont.Ed.Bar 1966) section 3.14, page 108.

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