A vendor-neutral citation movement[29] has led to provisions for citations in web-based cases and other legal documents. Some courts have amended their rules to explicitly include cases “published” on the Internet. A legal citation is a “reference to a precedent or authority, such as jurisprudence, statute or treaty, that establishes or contradicts a particular position.” [1] When cases are published on paper, the citation usually contains the following information: Case citation is a system used by lawyers to identify previous court decisions, either in a series of books called journalists or law books, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision, regardless of where it is reported. Case citations are formatted differently in different jurisdictions, but generally contain the same key information. In general writing, the titles of legislation appear in the Latin alphabet (i.e. not in italics): even then, such quotations are still quite long and can seem quite mysterious and intimidating to laymen when reading court decisions. Since the 1980s, there has been an ongoing debate among American judges about whether to ban these lengthy quotations in footnotes to improve the readability of their opinions, as strongly advocated by Bryan A. Garner, one of the leading writers of legal writing and style. [30] Most judges cite certain quotations in footnotes, but lawyers such as Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Richard Posner refuse to use footnotes in their opinions. There are a number of citation standards in Canada. Many legal publishers and schools have their own citation standard. Since the late 1990s, however, much of the legal community has agreed on a single standard – formulated in The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation / Manuel canadien de la référence juridique,[11] commonly referred to as the “McGill Guide” after the McGill Law Review, which first published it. The following format reflects this standard: Many court decisions are published in more than one journalist.
A citation to two or more journalists for a particular court decision is called a “parallel citation.” [24] There are several unofficial reporters for U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including the Supreme Court Reporter (abbreviated S. Ct.) and the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers` Edition (commonly referred to as the Lawyers` Edition) (abbreviated L. Ed.), which are printed by private companies and contain other comments on the opinions of the Court of Justice. Although a quote on the last two is not necessary, some lawyers and legal writers prefer to quote all three stenographers at once: This article serves to briefly educate readers on the proper use of Latin words or phrases in legal writing. It addresses two common misconceptions about when and how to use a Latin word or phrase. While the following rules and tips are particularly useful for appellate practitioners, they apply to all legal writing. With the advent of the Internet, many courts have placed new cases on websites. Some have been published, while others have never lost their “unpublished” status. Major legal citation systems required citations of officially published page numbers in which publishers such as West Publishing claimed copyright. The legal citation in Australia generally reflects the methods of citation used in England.
A widely used guide to Australian legal citations is the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (commonly known as AGLC), published jointly by the Melbourne University Law Review and the Melbourne Journal of International Law. However, in legal writings and in many Canadian government documents, the titles of statutes are italicized: The names of court cases appear in italics in legal and general writings: There are two types of citations: proprietary citations and public domain citations. There are many citation instructions; The most widely recognized is The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, compiled by Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. Public domain citations refer to official journalists and not to a publishing service such as Westlaw, LexisNexis, some legal journals or specialized journalists. States with their own unique style for court documents and case evaluations also publish their own style guidelines, which include information about their citation rules. [ref. needed] Despite the Philippines` long civil law tradition, recourse to precedent has become indispensable since U.S. rule. Supreme Court decisions are explicitly recognised as part of national law and are therefore frequently cited in court decisions and pleadings. Although there is only one Supreme Court in the Philippines, the citation of its decisions varies depending on the reporter of a case who relies on the person citing that case. For some reason, many lawyers use Latin words or phrases to improve their legal writing, perhaps thinking it will impress their readers. However, this often has the opposite effect.
Using archaic and unusual Latin not only makes your writing less clear, but you`re also more likely to make a grammatical mistake when using Latin.1 For these reasons, the use of simple English is usually superior.2 The only exception is for Latin words or phrases that have a particular legal meaning and no appropriate English equivalent. Such as “See say”, “habeas corpus” and “ex parte”. 3 In all other cases, use English instead of Latin. Most Commonwealth countries follow the English legal style: once you have determined that the use of Latin is appropriate, decide whether you want to italicize the word or phrase.4 It is a common misconception that a word or phrase should be italicized because it is Latin. On the contrary, Bluebook Rule 7(b) states that “Latin words and phrases commonly used in legal literature should be considered in common use in English and should not be italicized.5 However, very long Latin phrases and obsolete or unusual Latin words and phrases should remain in italics.” It also includes some examples of Latin words and phrases that are “often used in legal drafting.” 6 To determine whether a Latin word or phrase that does not appear in Rule 7(b) is “frequently used in the literature” or “obsolete or unusual” without making an arbitrary decision itself, see the latest edition of Black`s Law Dictionary.7 For simplicity, the following tables, which are not exhaustive, contain the examples given in Rule 7(b) and others: Examples not listed in Rule 7(b): as in Black`s Law Dictionary (10th ed.