The ''California Style Manual'', as provided by order of the

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

and pursuant to statute, is "the official organ for the styles to be used in the publication of the Official Reports" of decisions by California's courts. A person filing a document in a California state court may use either the style for

legal citation Legal citation is the practice of crediting and referring to authoritative documents and sources. The most common sources of authority cited are court decisions (cases), statutes, regulations, government documents, treaties, and scholarly writin ...

s prescribed in the ''Manual'' or the very different system promulgated in '' The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation'', but must use the same style consistently throughout the document. Most California state courts, and lawyers practicing in those courts, use the ''Manual's'' citation style. The current (fourth) edition of the ''Manual'', published in 2000 by

West Group West (also known by its original name, West Publishing) is a business owned by Thomson Reuters that publishes legal, business, and regulatory information in print, and on electronic services such as Westlaw. Since the late 19th century, West ha ...

, is freely available online at the Sixth District Appellate Programbr>webpage

History

The California Style Manual was first published in 1942 by

Bernard E. Witkin Bernard Ernest Witkin (May 22, 1904 – December 23, 1995) was an American lawyer and author. He is best remembered as the founder of the California law treatise, ''Summary of California Law'', which came to be known as "Witkin" and gave rise t ...

, who was the

California Reporter of Decisions The California Reporter of Decisions is a reporter of decisions supervised by the Supreme Court of California responsible for editing and publishing the published opinions of the judiciary of California. The Supreme Court's decisions are published ...

from 1940 to 1949. Originally intended primarily for court staff and the Reporter of Decisions themselves, the ''Manual'' soon became popular amongst attorneys. The second edition was written by William Nankervis in 1961, who served as Reporter from 1949 to 1969; the second revised and third editions were written by Robert E. Formichi in 1976 and 1986, respectively, during his term as Reporter from 1969 to 1989. The fourth and latest edition was published in 2000 by Edward W. Jessen, who served as Reporter from 1989 to 2014. The fifth edition will be written by Lawrence W. Striley, the current reporter of decisions since 2014, and will be published by

LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...

under contract with the Supreme Court.Standard Agreement between Matthew Bender & Company, a member of LexisNexis Group, and the Supreme Court of California, June 21, 2017.
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References

California_law Bibliography Legal citation guides {{US-law-stub