Court Case Citation Generator
Enter a case name, reporter volume and page, court, and year and get a complete legal citation in seconds. Legal writing normally uses Bluebook format — Case Name, Volume Reporter Page (Court Year) — and APA defers to it, so those are the exact fields this form collects. Works with APA, MLA, Chicago, and 10,832 styles. Free, no sign-up.
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How to Cite a Court Case
- 1. Find the Bluebook elements. At the top of the decision (Google Scholar, CourtListener, or the Legal Information Institute all show them) you'll find the case name, the reporter volume, the reporter abbreviation, the first page, the court, and the year — e.g. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Enter each element in its own field.
- 2. Pick a style. APA 7th defers to Bluebook for legal references, so the entry keeps the Bluebook shape; the case name is italicized in-text, e.g. (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). MLA adds the database or site where you read the decision. For a law course or journal, cite straight Bluebook.
- 3. Generate.We build the full case citation. Double-check the reporter abbreviation (U.S., F.3d, N.E.2d ...) against the decision — it identifies the court's level — then copy or export to BibTeX, RIS, CSV, or Word.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I generate a citation for a court case?
- Type the case name (e.g. Brown v. Board of Education), the reporter volume, the reporter abbreviation, the first page, the deciding court, and the year into the form, pick your citation style, and click Generate Citation. The source type is already set to 'Court case' (CSL legal_case), so the fields map to the standard legal-citation elements.
- What citation format do court cases normally use?
- In US legal writing, cases are almost always cited in Bluebook format: Case Name, Volume Reporter Page (Court Year) — e.g. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). The court is omitted when the reporter makes it obvious (U.S. means the Supreme Court). If you are writing for a law course or journal, use Bluebook; general academic styles largely defer to it.
- How does APA cite a court case?
- APA 7th explicitly defers to Bluebook for legal materials, so the reference looks like a Bluebook citation: Name v. Name, Volume Reporter Page (Court Year). The one APA twist is the in-text citation: the case name is italicized and cited with the year, e.g. (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954).
- How do I cite a court case in MLA?
- MLA 9th treats the case like any other work: the case name (not italicized in the Works Cited entry), then the volume, reporter, page, court, year, and the database or website where you read it, e.g. Legal Information Institute, with a URL. In your prose, MLA does italicize the case name.
- What do volume, reporter, and page mean?
- Published decisions are collected in book series called reporters. '347 U.S. 483' means volume 347 of the United States Reports, starting at page 483. You can find these numbers at the top of the decision on Google Scholar, CourtListener, or the Legal Information Institute — copy them into the volume, reporter, and page fields.
- Is the court case citation generator free?
- Yes. It is 100% free with no sign-up, no ads, and no limits. Your citations are saved locally in your browser and can be exported to BibTeX, RIS, CSV, or Word.