How to Cite a Court Case in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Bluebook

How to Cite a Court Case: Quick Answer

Use the style on the assignment sheet. Then cite the version of record in a reporter: case name, volume, reporter abbreviation, first page, court (only if the reporter does not already name it), and year. The same United States Reports string—Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)—is the backbone in every system below. What changes is typeface, punctuation, and whether you put the case on a reference list, a works-cited list, a footnote, or a citation sentence.

APA puts the case on the References list in roman type and italicizes the name only in the text (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §11.4). MLA documents the version you actually read. Chicago 18 usually keeps cases in notes and leaves them out of the bibliography. Bluebook is the system those three manuals defer to for the reporter citation itself. The atomic one-screen pages are court case in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Bluebook.

Which Citation Style Do You Use for Legal Cases?

The assignment sheet wins over field convention. If the prompt says APA, do not switch to Bluebook because the source is a court opinion. APA Chapter 11, the MLA Style Center legal-works page, and CMOS 18 §14.170 already tell non-law writers how to cite legal materials. Use Bluebook by itself in a law-school course, a law-review note, a memo, or a court filing.

Georgetown Law Library states the professional role of the manual. Harvard Law Library, which lists the 22nd edition (2025) as the current book, states the retrieval test that also applies in APA, MLA, and Chicago. Opened 16 September 2026, Georgetown's About the Bluebook page still says the book is in "the first printing of the 20th Edition" and still prints 20th-edition page numbers. Trust Harvard for the edition year; trust Georgetown for the wording of Rule 10 and the federal teaching cites.

How to Read a Case Citation

A reporter citation is an address, not a title. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) means: the opinion starts on page 483 of volume 347 of United States Reports, decided in 1954. The MLA Style Center walks through that same string:

The five elements you must collect

• Case name — first party on each side of v. (plaintiff or appellant first). Use v., not vs. or versus.
• Volume — the reporter volume (347 in 347 U.S. 483).
• Reporter abbreviation — the publication that printed the opinion (U.S., F.3d, F.4th, F. Supp. 2d, Cal. 3d).
• First page — where the opinion begins, not a page range. A later page you quote is a pinpoint, added after the first page.
• Court and year — year of decision in parentheses. Add the court only when the reporter does not already identify it. U.S. already means the Supreme Court, so you write (1954), not (U.S. 1954).

Common reporters and what they prove

Cite the official reporter when one exists. For the Supreme Court that is United States Reports (U.S.), not S. Ct. or a vendor database identifier. Georgetown's federal-courts page, opened 16 September 2026, still states that preference and still uses Roe, Riley, Corley, and City of Millville as the teaching cites.

How to Cite a Court Case in APA 7th Edition

APA 7th edition (2020) gives legal materials their own chapter. Chapter 11 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association follows standard American legal citation for the reference entry, then converts that entry into APA's author-date in-text system. University reprints of the official APA Style legal-references page (Fort Lewis College, opened 16 September 2026) still quote the rule and Table 11.1. The official HTML page itself is often WAF-blocked from automated readers; the wording below matches those reprints and the printed manual at pp. 355–361.

Table 11.1 is the failure-mode chart. Ordinary APA references run author–date–title–source. Legal references usually run title–source–date. The in-text cite is then the title and year, not an author. The version you cite is the version of record in the official reporter or code, with an optional URL for the copy you read. Two APA-only typeface rules catch most errors. The case name is roman in the reference list and italic in the text (Publication Manual, 7th ed., §11.3–11.4, including the note at p. 358). The in-text citation is (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). Do not italicize the reference-list entry the way you italicize a book title.

APA reference and in-text templates

The URL is optional. APA's own Supreme Court examples use a stable public page such as Oyez or the Court's PDF, not a generic opinions index. Do not invent a URL, and do not treat Westlaw or Lexis as the publisher of a reported case.

Worked APA examples from the Publication Manual

When APA 7 went to press, volume 576 of United States Reports had not yet assigned Obergefell a starting page, so the manual prints three underscores. The Supreme Court now cites the bound pagination as Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015). Use the underscore form only while the official page is still missing. Once U.S. pagination exists, cite that page. Do not keep a university reprint that still writes 135 S. Ct. 2584 after 576 U.S. 644 is assigned.

APA italicizes aff'd (affirmed) and rev'd (reversed) and sets them off with commas. The in-text citation then carries both years. Dropping the Tenth Circuit history turns a district-court holding into something the circuit already reviewed.

Tarasoff is the duty-to-protect case psychology and counseling papers actually cite. Subsequent mentions can shorten a long case name once the full name has appeared, as long as the reader can still match the reference list. For the atomic APA template, see how to cite a court case in APA.

How to Cite a Court Case in MLA 9th Edition

MLA does not ask you to pretend you are a lawyer. The MLA Style Center page "Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style," last visibly updated with an access date of 6 May 2026 on its Tennessee House Bill 2420 example, is explicit about who should use the handbook template:

You document the version you consulted, not only the canonical United States Reports cite. Italicize case names in prose and in the works-cited list (MLA Handbook, p. 70). Capitalize laws and acts in roman type: Civil Rights Act, not Civil Rights Act. After the first full mention, shorten the case to the first-listed nongovernmental party: NLRB v. Yeshiva University becomes Yeshiva.

MLA template versus hybrid

Those six lines were still on the Style Center page on 16 September 2026. The LII and Library of Congress Brown URLs returned HTTP 200. The Minnesota law-library McArthur file and the bound volume 550 PDF also returned 200. If two works-cited entries begin with the same governmental party, alphabetize by the nongovernmental party and point readers to that system in a note. For the one-screen MLA pattern, see how to cite a court case in MLA.

How to Cite a Court Case in Chicago 18th Edition

The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition (2024), follows The Bluebook for the form of legal citations. That is why a Chicago note for Brown looks like a Bluebook citation, not like a Chicago book note. CMOS's own Q&A on documentation, opened 16 September 2026, names the starting section:

The University of Queensland CMOS 18 legal-materials page repeats the same pointer and adds the jurisdiction split:

CMOS 18 still prefers notes over bibliography entries for cases. University of Chicago Press practice, restated in CMOS's legal-and-public-documents chapter, is that almost all legal work uses notes for documentation and few legal citations need a bibliography line. The University of Portland CMOS 18 government-and-legal page reprints the same Brown note used below.

In running text, italicize the case name: Brown v. Board of Education. In the first full note, Chicago follows Bluebook and usually leaves the full case name in roman type. The shortened note italicizes the short name. If your instructor insists on a bibliography, repeat the full citation as a hanging-indent entry; do not invent a Chicago author-date reference unless you are using Chicago's author-date system for the rest of the paper and have only a handful of legal citations.

Chicago notes-bibliography examples

Marbury is a real 1803 opinion. The nominative reporter Cranch sits in parentheses after U.S. because early United States Reports volumes were first published under the reporter's name. Chicago author-date papers that cite only one or two cases may put the same Bluebook string in the text in a citation sentence. If the paper is thick with cases, CMOS recommends adding notes rather than forcing every opinion into a parenthetical. See how to cite a court case in Chicago and the Chicago vs Bluebook comparison if you are choosing between a history paper and a legal note.

Bluebook 22nd Edition: Cases and Court Documents

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, compiled by the editors of the Columbia, Harvard, Pennsylvania, and Yale law journals and published by the Harvard Law Review Association, is now in its 22nd edition (May 2025). Harvard Law Library confirmed that edition date on 16 September 2026 and still warns that some page numbers in its own guide remain from the 21st edition. Rule 10 and Bluepages B10 govern cases. Rule 10.8.1 covers pending and unreported cases; Rule 10.8.3 covers briefs, filings, and transcripts. This section is the classroom overlay so an APA, MLA, or Chicago paper does not accidentally become a law-review footnote. For signals, subsequent history, and jurisdiction tables, use the law citation guide.

The Bluepages, on page 1 of the manual, are the practitioner rules. Georgetown quotes their purpose and the typeface split:

Basic Bluebook case format

In a citation sentence, Rule 10.2.2 and Table T6 abbreviate ordinary words in the case name (Board becomes Bd., Education becomes Educ.). Never abbreviate United States when it is a named party: write United States v. Microsoft Corp., not U.S. v. Microsoft Corp. U.S. in a citation is the reporter, not the party.

Worked Bluebook examples from Georgetown's citing-cases guide

Georgetown still teaches Roe as the Supreme Court citation pattern. That is a retrieval example, not a statement of current law. If your paper discusses abortion jurisprudence after 24 June 2022, attach the subsequent history. Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), overruled Roe. The law citation guide prints the same overruled by string for Bluebook readers; this page prints it so a history or political-science paper does not cite Roe as if it were still controlling.

Those three published federal cites do extra work. 2d Cir. is required because F.3d is a national reporter. D.N.J. is required because F. Supp. 2d is also national. Omit the court only when the reporter itself names it, as U.S. does for the Supreme Court. For the full Bluebook rule set, signals, and jurisdiction tables, use the law citation guide and the court-case-in-Bluebook example page.

Pinpoint Citations and Parallel Citations

A pinpoint (or pincite) is the page you are actually quoting or discussing. In Bluebook and Chicago notes it comes after the first page of the opinion, then again in the short form with at: Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954), then Brown, 347 U.S. at 495. APA's ordinary page citation for a quotation is (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954, p. 495). MLA puts the page, if you have one, in the parenthetical: (Brown 495). Peter W. Martin's LII Introduction to Basic Legal Citation, § 2-200, opened 16 September 2026, is still blunt:

A parallel citation lists more than one reporter for the same opinion. State courts often appear in an official state reporter and a regional West reporter. APA's Tarasoff example keeps all three: 17 Cal. 3d 425, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334 (1976). Bluebook Table T1 tells you which reporter to prefer when local rules do not demand parallels. Unless a court rule or your professor requires parallels, one preferred reporter is enough.

Unpublished Opinions, Dockets, and Court Filings

Not every decision has a reporter page. Bluebook Rule 10.8.1 cites a pending or unreported case with the docket number, a database identifier when you used one, the court, and the full date, not the year alone. Do not invent a Westlaw or Lexis number. If you only have a court PDF, cite the docket and the court's URL.

MLA, again, cites the version in hand. The Style Center's unpublished example is Minnesota v. McArthur, a Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion posted on the state law library site, labeled "Unpublished opinion." That is the model when there is no reporter: court, case name, date, and the file you used.

A court filing is not the opinion. Briefs, complaints, and transcripts follow Bluebook Rule 10.8.3: document title, pinpoint, case name, reporter cite if the case is reported, docket number, court, and date. In a non-law paper you can describe the filing in a sentence and cite the reported opinion, or give the filing its own note. Do not invent a brief page number.

Docket 14-556 is the real Obergefell Supreme Court number. The pinpoint slot stays a slot until you have the page you actually used.

Statutes, Constitutions, and Nearby Legal Documents

A case citation answers "which opinion." A statute citation answers "which enacted law." Keep them separate. APA Chapter 11, MLA's legal template, Chicago notes, and Bluebook Rules 11–14 all treat constitutions, statutes, bills, hearings, and executive orders as their own source types. The law citation guide covers the Bluebook versions in more depth. The examples below are the ones non-law papers actually need, taken from the same official pages as the case examples, plus the live CMOS Q&A that now walks through campaign-finance statutes.

Statutes and public laws

Constitutions

APA typically cites the Constitution in the text only, with no reference-list entry: U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. Chicago and Bluebook use the same compact form in a note. MLA cites the edition or website you read—for example the National Archives transcription—and refers to "the Constitution" in prose.

Executive orders and state bills

Common Mistakes When Citing Cases

• Writing vs. or versus — every current system uses v.
• Italicizing an APA reference-list case name — roman in References, italic only in the text.
• Leaving Obergefell as 576 U.S. ___ after the bound volume assigned page 644 — the underscore form is only for opinions that still lack a U.S. page.
• Citing Roe as current law after 24 June 2022 — the reporter cite is still 410 U.S. 113; the subsequent history is overruled by Dobbs, 597 U.S. 215 (2022).
• Dropping subsequent history from Durflinger — APA's printed example includes aff'd, 727 F.2d 888 (10th Cir. 1984).
• Adding a court to a U.S. cite — (U.S. 1954) is wrong; the reporter already names the Court.
• Omitting the court on F.3d, F.4th, or F. Supp. — those reporters cover many courts, so (2d Cir. 2001) or (D.N.J. 2010) is required.
• Treating Cal. App. 4th as the California Supreme Court — that series is the Court of Appeal; the Supreme Court is Cal. 4th or Cal. 5th.
• Copying Georgetown's About page as if it were the current edition — it still says 20th edition; Harvard and legalbluebook.com say 22nd edition (2025).
• Inventing a reporter page, a brief pinpoint, or a Westlaw number — if the opinion is unreported, say so and cite the docket and the file you have.
• Putting Chicago cases only in the bibliography — CMOS 18 §14.170 expects a note. Add a bibliography line only if your instructor asks.
• Copying a database header as the case name — use the first party on each side; drop extra procedural phrases Bluebook Rule 10.2 tells you to omit.
• Updating the edition in the title but not the form — this guide uses APA 7 (2020), MLA 9 (2021), Chicago 18 (2024), and Bluebook 22 (2025).

Official Sources and Further Reading

When a generator, a database export, and a classroom handout disagree, the manuals win. These are the primary sources opened for this rewrite:

• APA Style: Legal references — Chapter 11 overview. The HTML is often WAF-blocked; Fort Lewis reprints the same sentence and Table 11.1.
• APA Style: Court-decision references — official Brown, Obergefell underscore, Daubert, Durflinger, and Tarasoff templates.
• American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). See Chapter 11, especially §§11.3–11.4 and pp. 357–361.
• MLA Style Center: Documenting legal works — template vs hybrid method, Brown on LII and the Library of Congress, unpublished state opinions, dissents. Tennessee House Bill 2420 now carries Accessed 6 May 2026.
• Modern Language Association. (2021). MLA handbook (9th ed.). See pp. 69–70 on titles of cases and laws, and §§5.17–22 on government authors.
• Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide — start here, then use CMOS 18 §14.170 for note-only cases.
• CMOS Q&A: Documentation — legal advice starts at §14.170 and relies on The Bluebook. The live FECA / BCRA walkthrough is §14.183.
• University of Chicago Press. (2024). The Chicago Manual of Style (18th ed.). Legal citations follow The Bluebook.
• University of Queensland: CMOS 18 legal material — §14.170 plus the Canada / UK jurisdiction split.
• Georgetown Law Library: About the Bluebook — "governs how American legal documents are cited in legal memoranda, court documents, and law journals." Still labels the book 20th edition.
• Georgetown Law Library: Citing cases — Rule 10, Tables T1, T6, T7, and T10, plus the Bluepages/Whitepages typeface split.
• Georgetown Law Library: Federal courts — Roe, Riley, Corley, and City of Millville teaching cites.
• Harvard Law Library: Bluebook legal citation — 22nd edition (2025), Bluepages vs Whitepages, and the six-step citation process.
• Harvard Law Review Association. (2025). The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (22nd ed.).
• Legal Information Institute: How to cite judicial opinions — Peter W. Martin's free practitioner-oriented guide.
• The Indigo Book — a public-domain implementation of the Bluebook system, useful when you cannot access the print manual.

Related guides and tools

• Law citation guide: Bluebook basics
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