Bluebook Citation Explainer
Paste a case or statute in any form. Get the Bluebook citation, its short form, and the rule behind every part.
Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938)
How it works
- 1
Paste any citation
Type it the way you found it: a full case name, a bare reporter cite, or “42 USC 1983”.
- 2
Hover each part
Every piece of the citation is tied to the rule that shaped it, with what changed from what you wrote.
- 3
Ask why
Still unsure? Ask a question. Answers draw on the full Indigo Book, starting from the rules applied to your citation.
Questions
Is this the same as The Bluebook?
It follows the same citation system. Explanations cite the Indigo Book, a free public-domain implementation of that system, and give the matching Bluebook rule where the two line up exactly.
What can it format?
Cases from U.S. federal and state reporters, the United States Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Register, federal court rules, and many state codes.
Does it handle law review footnotes?
Not yet. Citations follow the form for court documents and legal memoranda, where case names are italicized. Law review footnotes set case names in roman type.
Where do the court and year come from?
From what you wrote. When you leave them out and the case is in the OpenCase law library, they come from the case record, and the explanation says so.
Need to know what the case says, too?
Ask OpenCase what a case held and how later courts have applied it. Every answer links to the opinion.
Built on the Indigo Book, a public-domain guide to the same citation system. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the Harvard Law Review Association, publisher of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Citations follow the form for court documents and legal memoranda. Your professor, journal or court may follow local rules, so check them.