The Bluebook
Where you look in the Bluebook to learn how to cite authorities from different jurisdictions.
What is Table 1?
These authorities are the law and are written by a governmental body.
What are primary authorities?
This is required in legal correspondence because of deadlines in the legal profession.
What is the date?
It can be confusing if you use this when writing for clients and non-lawyers.
What is legalese?
The summary of the court's ruling.
What is the holding?
The Bluebook requires you to do these two things to case names.
What is underline or italicize AND abbreviate words?
These authorities discuss and analyze the law and are written by scholars and practitioners.
What are secondary authorities?
The abbreviation used to signify you’ve enclosed documents with the letter.
What is Enc. or Encl.?
Using this usually produces shorter, clearer sentences.
What is active voice?
An opinion by a court on a question that is not essential to its decision even though it may be directly involved.
This is the difference between stand-alone citations and textual-sentence citations.
What is abbreviation of case names? (In stand-alone citations all words that can be abbreviated are, while in textual-sentence citations only eight words are abbreviated.)
These are four types of primary authorities.
What are cases, statutes, constitutions, regulations, court rules, treaties, ordinances?
The information conveyed in the reference line.
What is a brief summary of the letter's contents? (May also include the case/client number as reference.)
The tone you would use in a legal memo for your attorney.
What is neutral/objective?
You should only include the legally relevant portion of these in your case brief.
What are the facts?
How you indicate multiple sections in a statutory citation.
What is include two section symbols and a page range or multiple pages? Example: 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983-1984 (2017).
These are five types of secondary authorities.
What are law reviews/journals, A.L.R., Restatements, encyclopedias, dictionaries, treatises, hornbooks?
Demand letters include these three additional elements.
What are a demand (to do or stop doing something), a compliance date, and consequences of non-compliance?
These two tips can improve the editing process.
What is reading your work aloud, putting it aside for a few hours/days, and editing from a hard copy (not on screen)?
These should be limited to 1, maybe 2, sentences.
What are the issue and the holding?
This information is removed in the short cite for a case, while this information is added.
What is "v.," the second party's name (unless the government is the first party), the court, and the year? What is the pincite?
In your research of a First Amendment issue to challenge a 2015 federal statute, you find a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case on point and a 2018 law review article. This is the hierarchy of those three authorities.
What is the 2017 case, 2015 statute, and the 2018 law review article?
The person who signs a letter that gives legal advice and why.
Who is the attorney because it is unauthorized practice of law for a paralegal to give legal advice?
Two questions to ask yourself before writing a document.
What is the purpose and who is the audience?
The most important part of a case brief and what it includes.
What is the rationale? It includes the court's reasoning, such as legislative intent, stare decisis, or public policy.