The Bluebook is a legal citation style manual for legal memoranda, court documents, and law journals in the United States. Bluebook citations have been a "gold standard" citation style within the legal profession for a little over 100 years, with the first manual dating back to the 1920s. It has continued to evolve, with rules being added, revised, expanded, or reduced, as the legal profession, and its sources, have as well.
It is written and complied by editors of the Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal.
Although intimidating to new users, this guide was made with the intent of easing the intimidation of The Bluebook and provide guidance to basic concepts of legal citation to new law students. This guide, however, can come in handy at any point in your legal profession when you may need a refresher.
This guide is not comprehensive of all the material found in The Bluebook. This guide covers the more commonly cited to materials, but it does not cover all of the material that can be cited to in court documents and/or law journal articles.
The most current edition of The Bluebook is the 22st edition, published in 2025.
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (Columbia L. Rev. Ass’n et al. eds., 21st ed. 2020)
There are multiple copies for check out in the Law Library.
ISBN: 9798218574574
Call No.: KF 245 .B58 2025
Although The Bluebook is the most commonly used legal citation style, there are a few other options you may want to reference when The Bluebook does not have a clear cut rule on a source you need to cite to.
The Association of Legal Writing Directors publishes ALWD Guide to Legal Citation which provides some of the same rules as The Bluebook, but also covers more specific sources such as ordinances, oral presentations or speeches, and more.
Carolyn V. Williams, ALWD Guide to Legal Citation (7th ed., 2021)
The Law Library keeps one of these on permanent reserve.
ISBN: 9781543807776
Call No.: KF 245 .A45 2021
Another legal citation style is published by The University of Chicago with the intent of being more simple and straightforward than The Bluebook. They coined their legal citation style The Maroonbook. This legal citation style is seen in The University of Chicago Law Review's article, as well as a few other law journal articles.
The University of Chicago publishes the new volumes to their website, which is linked above.
When you open The Bluebook, the inside cover and first page provides Quick Reference of commonly used citation forms for law review footnotes. On the last page and back inside cover, you can find more Quick References, but these are the commonly used citation forms for court documents and legal memoranda.
Depending on what kind of assignment you are working on, these Quick Reference pages, may be of use to students who are already familiar with The Bluebook and its rules.
| The Preface | Provides an overview of the most noteworthy changes made from the 21st edition to the 22nd edition (p. VII) |
| Contents | Table of Contents that provides page numbers to every rule and table in the book (p. IX) |
| Introduction | A brief overview of the structure of The Bluebook and the general principles of legal citation (p. 1) |
| The Bluepages | Guide of rules for citing in non-academic legal documents- primary uses: briefs, motions, memoranda, and opinions (pp. 3-31) |
| The Bluepages Tables | Tables that include (1) abbreviations for commonly used words found in titles of court documents, and (2) jurisdiction-specific rules on citation and style (pp. 32-64) |
| Rules | Guide of rules for citing academic legal documents (law review journals and research papers) that provide rules for: (1) structure, use, and formatting of citations; and (2) how to cite to specific sources (i.e.; cases, statutes, constitutions, legislative material, administrative and executive materials, periodical and non-periodical materials, unpublished opinions, electronic media, foreign and international materials) (pp. 65-256) |
| Tables |
Tables containing information on: (1) U.S. juridctions; (2) foreign jurisdictions*; (3) intergovernmental organizations; (4) treaty sources; (5) arbitral reporters; (6) common words; (7) court names; (8) explanatory phrases; (9) legislative documents; (10) geographical terms; (11) judges and officials; (12) months; (13) institutional names in periodical titles; (14) publishing terms; (15) services; and (16) subdivisions (pp. 257-353) *foreign jurisdictions table is only available online, linked here. |
| Index | Directory to specific page numbers (not rule numbers) to particular sources and/or rules the user needs in order to properly cite a source (pp. 355-390) |
The Law Library collection has useful supplemental material specifically for students and legal researchers who are just getting started in using legal citation styles, more specifically The Bluebook style.
**NOTE: A new edition of the Bluebook was published in June 2025. These supplements are for the 2020 edition of The Bluebook. Ensure that you are not using old Bluebook rules instead of the new one just recently published. When new supplements are released for the newest edition of The Bluebook, they will replace the ones currently listed below.**
Understanding and Mastering the Bluebook
by
Users Guide to the Bluebook
by
Legal Citation in a Nutshell
by
