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Citrus
Bluebook Citations to the
American Law Institute's Restatements of the Law
Entering Legal Citations More Quickly
In the preceding section, you saw how Citrus automatically corrects legal citation errors of both syntax and substance. This section will show you how you can use Citrus' error correcting capability to enter legal citations more quickly. Start by typing this sentence:
Enforcement of a judgment obtained under duress may be denied. F2 rstmt conflict 115 cmt e illus 4 (1969).F2
(If you did not use F2 to mark your citation then highlight the citation now and press F2.)
After you press F2, Citrus will produce the following correct Bluebook citation:
Enforcement of a judgment obtained under duress may be denied. Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 115 cmt. e, illus. 4 (1971).
Citrus will do the following:
- Corrects "rstmt" to "Restatement," "cmt" to "cmt.," and "illus" to "illus." just as a legal spelling checker would do;
- Uses the year of publication to infer that this is a citation to the second series instead of the first and adds "(Second)" in the correct place;
- Knows that "conflict" appears only in the Restatement of "Conflict of Laws" and makes the appropriate substitution;
- Understands that the section number always follows the title, so Citrus converts "115" into "§ 115"; and
- Changes the incorrect citation to the year of promulgation (1969) into a correct citation to the year of publication (1971).
If you want a more complete discussion of the technicalities involving the promulgation and publication dates mentioned in the last item then click here. If you are like most people and you just want to concentrate on writing your brief then you can skip that section because Citrus will generally take care of those picky details for you.
Citrus understands many reasonable abbreviations of common terms without regard for capitalization, so Restatement, rstmt, Rest, or even just "r." is sufficient. Conversely, you need not waste time looking up words to see if you are supposed to abbreviate them because Citrus will apply the correct Bluebook abbreviation rules.
Citrus can often infer the correct title from a shortened form of the title. If a title contains a word that is commonly abbreviated then Citrus often recognizes both the full form of the word at its abbreviation and then transforms it to the proper Bluebook form in your legal brief.
Finally, Citrus rarely requires that you enter punctuation and almost never carries a grudge if you enter too much punctuation or punctuate in the wrong place.
The examples below show various abbreviated forms of citation and the corrected form that Citrus generates.
Abbreviated
r. 2d agency 15
Corrected by Citrus
Restatement (Second) of Agency § 15 (1958)
Abbreviated
r. agency 15 1957
Corrected by Citrus
Restatement (Second) of Agency § 15 (1958)
Abbreviated
rstmt (first) prop 15, comment a
Corrected by Citrus
Restatement of Prop.: Introduction & Freehold Estates § 15 cmt. a (1936)
Abbreviated
rstmt surety guaranty 24 (1995)
Corrected by Citrus
Restatement (Third) of Suretyship & Guar. § 24 (1996)
Using the wrong date at the end of a Restatement citation is one of the most common errors. Click here for a more thorough explanation of how Citrus corrects dates in citations to the Restatement.