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Bluebook Citation: State Cases

This guide covers an overview of Bluebook citations, FAQs, and supplemental material to aid in your legal citations.

State Reporters

State court cases are often published in more than one place. A state court case decision may be published in an official state reporter, if the state has one. State court cases may also be published in a regional reporter, which are commercially published (unofficial) reporters containing appellate court and state supreme court decisions from states in a particular region of the United States. To see what states are included in each regional reporter, check out Westlaw's Regional Reporters Map. 

Relevant Rules and Tables in The Bluebook

  • Rule 10.3.1: Generally, state court case citations should cite to the unofficial regional reporter, rather than the official state reporter
  • Rule 10.4: Guidance to indicating the state and court of a decision 
  • Table 1: provides the abbreviated court names for each state, as well as the hierarchy of which reporters to cite to within each state
  • Table 10: provides the abbreviated state names

Regional Reporters

Elements to a State Case Citation with a Regional Reporter

  1. Name of Case
    • Remember: If it is a court document, the case name is underlined or italicized, but if it is the first full citation of a case in a law journal article, the case is in plain text. See Rule B2 for court documents and Rule 2 for law journals.
    • Ensure that the case name is abbreviated according to Rule 10.2 
      • See Table 6 for a list of abbreviated words commonly found in case names
  2. Volume of Reporter
  3. Reporter Abbreviation (See T1.3)
  4. First Page of Case
  5. State and Court
    • Ensure state and court are abbreviated according to Rule 10.4 and T1 & T10
  6. Year of Decision

Here is an example:

State v. Zurawski, 690 S.W.3d 644 (Tex. 2024)

The reason the court is only "Tex." and not "Tex. Sup. Ct." is because of Rule 10.4(b). The Bluebook dictates that in general, you should indicate the state and court of the decision; however, do not include the name of the court if the decision comes from the highest court of the state. 

Official State Reporters

Elements of a State Case Citation with a Official State Reporter

  1. Name of Case
    • Remember: If it is a court document, the case name is underlined or italicized, but if it is the first full citation of a case in a law journal article, the case is in plain text. See Rule B2 for court documents and Rule 2 for law journals.
    • Ensure that the case name is abbreviated according to Rule 10.2 
      • See Table 6 for a list of abbreviated words commonly found in case names
  2. Volume of Reporter
  3. Reporter Abbreviation (See T1.3)
  4. First Page of Case
  5. State and Court
    • Ensure state and court are abbreviated according to 10.4 and T1 & T10
  6. Year of Decision

Here is an example:

Goldrush II v. City of Marietta, 267 Ga. 683 (1997)

The reason the court and state are not included in the parenthetical information is because of Rule 10.4(b). Rule 10.4(b) states that if the jurisdiction and/or the court are unambiguously conveyed by the reporter title, omit putting the jurisdiction and/or court in the parenthetical information. 

Illinois State Case Citations

Illinois' Style Citation Sources 

The Bluebook provides specific information on courts and their abbreviations on pp. 225-56.

If the court document you are filing is for the Supreme Court of Illinois or appellate jurisdiction, the Illinois Supreme Court adopted, in 2024, the Style Manual for the Supreme and Appellate Courts of Illinois, which took effect on January 1, 2025. 

The Style Manual  provides guidance to: (1) structuring an opinion; (2) grammatical style; and (3) citation style.

Illinois Published Opinions

Illinois used to publish its decisions in official state reporters: Illinois Reports (Illinois Supreme Court) and Illinois Appellate Court Reports (Illinois appellate decisions). However, in 2011, Illinois stopped publishing the printed official reporters and began issuing electronic versions of both the Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Courts decisions on Illinoiscourts.gov. For cases accessed this way, use The Bluebook's public domain formatting (p. 255).

Illinois decision can also be found in the North Eastern Reporter and West's Illinois Decisions. 

 

Here are some examples:

Regional Reporter Formatting:

Bd. of Educ. of Chi. v. Ill. Educ. Labor Rels. Bd., 69 N.E.3d 809 (Ill. 2015)

Public Domain Formatting:

Bd. of Educ. of Chi. v. Ill. Educ. Labor Rels. Bd., 2015 IL 118043, ¶¶ 14-18

Regional Reporter Formatting:

People v. Dickey, 961 N.E.2d 816 (Ill. App. Ct. 2011)

Public Domain Formatting: 

People v. Dickey, 2011 IL App (3d) 100397, ¶4