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Legal Research Guide: Citing Legal Resources

Bluebook Citation

bluebook citation manual

Citing legal documents and law cases can be complicated. If your paper calls for a lot of legal references, consult The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. A basic guide to this style is linked below. 

Citing Legal Resources in APA

Citing Cases 

In some cases, you may need to use APA to cite a case or a law. Here are some examples:

APA:

In text: 

Lessard v. Schmidt (1972)

Mental Health Systems Act (1988)

Reference List:

Lessard v. Schmidt, 349 F. Supp. 1078 (E.D. Wis. 1972)

Mental Health Systems Act, 42 U.S.C. § 9401 (1988). 

*See Appendix 7.1 in the APA Handbook for more information on citing legal materials. 

For additional help, see the APA Style Blog guide to citing legal information, including court decisions, the Code of Federal Regulations, and more: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/legal/

Citing Law Reviews

Law reviews are scholarly journal articles. Therefore, they are cited exactly the same way. See the link below for an example. Make sure to spell out the name of the journal in which the law review appears.