''ALWD Guide to Legal Citation'', formerly ''ALWD Citation Manual'', is a

style guide A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for gene ...

providing a

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 ...

system for the United States, compiled by the Association of Legal Writing Directors. Its first edition was published in 2000, under editor Darby Dickerson. Its sixth edition, under editor Coleen M. Barger, was released in May 2017 by

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. () is a Dutch information services company. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (Global) and Philadelphia, United States (corporate). Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a m ...

. It primarily competes with the ''

Bluebook ''The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation'' is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. It is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools and is also used in a majority of federal ...

'' style, a system developed by the law reviews at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

, and

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

. Citations in the two formats are roughly similar. However, ''ALWD'' differs from ''Bluebook'' in one key respect: Under the ''Bluebook'' system, the type styles used in citations found in academic legal articles (always footnoted) are very different from those used in citations within court documents (always cited inline). While the ''ALWD'' system follows the standard convention of footnotes within academic articles and inline citations in court documents, it rejects ''Bluebook''s insistence on using different type styles in the two classes of documents. The ''ALWD'' type style is identical to that used in the ''Bluebook'' system for citations within court documents.

Adoption

Three U.S. jurisdictions have adopted ''ALWD'': *

United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (in case citations, 11th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following U.S. district courts: * Middle District of Alabama * Northern District of Alabama * ...

**This court accepts citations in either ''ALWD'' or ''Bluebook'' format, but also requires that citations to

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decisions provide both official "U.S." and

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

's "S.Ct." citations, when available. *

United States District Court for the District of Montana United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...

**This court specifically accepts either ''ALWD'' or ''Bluebook''. *

United States Bankruptcy Court United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy c ...

, Montana **This court accepts any "nationally recognized citation form", and specifically names the ''ALWD Citation Manual''. It does not mention ''Bluebook'' by name, but given its national recognition (it is the dominant legal style guide in the United States), it should be accepted. In addition to those, 72 law schools and 47 paralegal schools have fully adopted ''ALWD''. Law journals such as ''Animal Law'', ''NAELA'', and ''Legal Writing'' have also adopted ''ALWD''. Law school adoption numbers reported as of December 2002.

References

External links

The ''ALWD Citation Manual''
Aspen Publishers' dedicated ''ALWD Citation Manual'' website. * Cornell Legal Information Institute
Introduction to Basic Legal Citation
2006, by Peter Martin.(Discusses differences between the ''Bluebook'' and ''ALWD''.) * Raktas i Bluebook ir ALWD

2008, by Tadas Klimas.(Adapts ''Bluebook'' and ''ALWD'' to Lithuanian texts and sources.) Bibliography Legal citation guides {{ref-book-stub

Adoption

See also

References

External links