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Online Legal Research

A guide for students doing research in law-related subject courses

Legal Research Pages:  Basic Law — Citations & Abbreviations — Finding the Law — Databases — Connectors — Truncation, Wildcards
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2.  Legal Citations & Abbreviations:

Legal citations use abbreviations for the sources, rather than full titles..  For instance, in the short form citation:

113 F3d 229
"F3d" refers to the Federal Reporter, 3rd Series.  As in most citations, the first number (113) refers to the volume, while the final number (229) refers to the page.  In most cases when using a case reporter, the page will be the first page of a case, although in special circumstances the reference is to a specific page within a case. 

Citing statutes is somewhat different.  Most state statutes will begin with the source then have a single number for the actual statute:

FS246.3
refers to the Florida Statutes, chapter 246, section 3.  The U.S. Code, however, is cited beginning with the title number, then the source and chapter.  For instance,
11USC291
refers to Title 11, the bankruptcy laws.  (By the way, the terms "code" and "statutes" (plural) are often used interchangeably to refer to a codified collection of statutes.)  Most legal sources give the correct, full citation on the same page to the individual items you wish to cite.  Those which do not, especially the older versions in print, usually have a sample, either near the title page or at the end of the volume, for you to follow.

If you have an abbreviation for which you need to know the proper name of the source, use Bieber:
      Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations.  REF DESK KF246.B46 1988.
In addition, there is another "Bieber" for finding the correct form for citing a specific source:
      Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Citations.  REF DESK KF246.B45 1988.

In general, the full citation for case law is:

        Case name,volume #  source  page  (court, date).
eg., Gardner v. State,       448 So.2d 1136   (Fla.App., 1984).
Most legal databases allow searching by short citation, which, if you already have a citation to a relevant case, is a shortcut to getting your legal research started.  And any adequate search engine, in a legal database or a legal website, should allow you to search by title (Gardner v. State, in the example above) or the parties (Gardner and State, although be warned:  there are thousands of cases involving "State," because that is short for the state government of every state!

When referring to a case in a report, the first mention should include the citation as well as the case name.  In most cases, thereafter the case name is sufficient.  However, if you find the appellant has appealed the case several times, you may need to include the short form citation after the case name to clarify as to which case you are referring, especially if you refer to more than one of the appeals.

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This page created and maintained by Steve Morris,
Business  and  Legal  Research  Specialist,
Reference & Instructional Services Dept.
Steven and Dorothea Green Library
Florida International University
Miami, Florida 33199

 
Online Legal Research - 2:  Citations & Abbreviations
URL:  http://www.fiu.edu/~morriss/Guides/legalonline2.html

Content Last Updated :
        August 21, 2009

 

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