How to Read a Legal Citation

Say you have been asked to read Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483.

This is an example of a legal citation to a case. Citations are abbreviated references to legal sources, such as court reporters, statutory compilations, and law reviews. Citations generally follow this standard format:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

Party Names	347	U.S.	483
Brown v. Board of Education	Volume number	Abbreviated Court Reporter Title	Page or Section Number

The difficulty with citations lies in deciphering the abbreviations of the source title. The Bluebook lists the abbreviations used for each court reporter, statutory compilation and law review. In the above example, U.S. stands for United States Reports, a publication of United States Supreme Court decisions.

So now you know that Brown v. Board of Education is located in volume 347, page 483 of the United States Reports.

However, opinions of certain courts are often published in more than one court reporter. Citations to the same case in different reporters are called parallel citations. For example, opinions of the US Supreme Court may be found in three different court reporters:

• United States Reports (U.S.), published by the US government, this is the official reporter,
• Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.), an unofficial reporter published by West Publishing and
• United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer's Edition (L.Ed.), another unofficial reporter published by Lexis Publishing.

So your citation might look like this:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873

Here is a list of materials, available at the Mabie Law Library, which may be helpful in understanding the basics of legal citation.

Use Cardiff's Index of Legal Abbreviations for UK/Scottish/Irish legal materials.