The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a style guide, prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. The Bluebook is compiled by the Harvard Law Review Association, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Currently, it is in its 19th edition. It is so named because its cover is blue.

The Bluebook is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools, and is also used in a majority of U.S. federal courts. Alternative legal citation style guides exist, including the ALWD Citation Manual. There are also several "house" citation styles used by legal publishers in their works.

The U.S. Supreme Court uses its own unique citation style in its opinions, even though most of the justices and their law clerks obtained their legal education at law schools that use The Bluebook. Furthermore, many state courts have their own citation rules that take precedence over The Bluebook for documents filed with those courts. Some of the local rules are simple modifications to The Bluebook system, such as Maryland's requirement that citations to Maryland cases include a reference to the official Maryland reporter. Delaware's Supreme Court has promulgated rules of citation for unreported cases markedly different from The Bluebook standards, and custom in that state as to the citation format of the Delaware Code also differs from The Bluebook.^{[citation needed]} In other states, notably New York, California, Texas, and Michigan, the local rules are so different from The Bluebook that they are codified in their own style guides. Competent attorneys in those states must be able to switch seamlessly between citation styles depending upon whether their work product is intended for a federal or state court.

An online subscription version of The Bluebook was launched in 2008.^[1]

Elements[link]

The 18th edition of The Bluebook governs the style and formatting of various references and elements of a legal publication, including:

History[link]

The origin of The Bluebook was a pamphlet for proper citation forms for articles in the Harvard Law Review written by its editor, Erwin Griswold.^[2] In 1939, the cover of the book was changed from brown to a "more patriotic blue" to avoid comparison with a color associated with Nazi Germany.^[3]

Criticism[link]

At over 500 pages for the 19th edition, The Bluebook is significantly more complicated than the citation systems used by most other fields. Legal scholars have called for its replacement with a simpler system.^[4] The University of Chicago uses the simplified "Maroonbook",^[5] and even simpler systems are in use by other parties.

Judge Richard Posner is "one of the founding fathers of Bluebook abolitionism, having advocated it for almost twenty-five years, ever since his 1986 U of Chicago Law Review article^[6] on the subject." In a 2011 Yale Law Journal article, he wrote that:

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation exemplifies hypertrophy in the anthropological sense. It is a monstrous growth, remote from the functional need for legal citation forms, that serves obscure needs of the legal culture and its student subculture.^[4]

He wrote that a cursory look at the Nineteenth Edition "put me in mind of Mr. Kurtz's dying words in Heart of Darkness--'The horror! The horror!'[.]"^[4]

See also[link]

• Legal citation signals
• Australian Guide to Legal Citation
• Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation
• Oxford Standard for Citation Of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA)

References[link]

1. ^ "The Bluebook Legal Citation Guide Now Available Online". Yale Law School. 22 February 2008. http://www.law.yale.edu/news/6288.htm. Retrieved 13 November 2011. 
2. ^ Hurt, Christine (2007). "The Bluebook at Eighteen: Reflecting and Ratifying Current Trends in Legal Scholarship". Indiana Law Journal 82: 49, 51–52. 
3. ^ Dickerson, A. Darby (1996). "An Un-Uniform System of Citation: Surviving with the New Bluebook". Stetson Law Review (Stetson University College of Law) 26: 53, 58–60. 
4. ^ ^{a b c} Posner, Richard A. (2011). "The Bluebook Blues". Yale Law Journal 120 (4): 850–861. http://www.yalelawjournal.org/images/pdfs/940.pdf. Retrieved 13 November 2011. 
5. ^ The University of Chicago Manual of Legal Citation. University of Chicago Law Review. http://lawreview.uchicago.edu/page/maroonbook. 
6. ^ Posner, Richard A. (1986). "Goodbye to the Bluebook". The University of Chicago Law Review 53 (4): 1343. JSTOR 1599750. 

External links[link]

• Official website
• Citeus Legalus, an automatic Bluebook citation generator
• Introduction to legal citation, by Peter W. Martin
• A Bluebook Guide for Law Students, by Scott Akehurst-Moore

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2009)

Robin Guthrie (born 4 January 1962, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, Scotland) is a musician best known as co-founder of the Cocteau Twins.^[1] During his career Guthrie has played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums and other musical instruments, in addition to programming, sampling and sound processing. Guthrie also works extensively as a producer and engineer.

Career[link]

Following the break-up of the Cocteau Twins in 1998, Guthrie released his first solo record, Imperial, in 2003 on Bella Union Records. Guthrie's next release, which was co-written with Harold Budd, was the film score for Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin.^[2] The soundtrack was released in May 2005 by Commotion and consists of fifteen complete songs based on the short pieces used in the film.

In 2006, Guthrie signed a four-album solo deal with Darla Records, the first product of which was the album Continental. He subsequently released two four-track EPs, Everlasting and Waiting for Dawn.

Two more collaborations with Harold Budd (who had previously announced his musical retirement) were released simultaneously in 2007. After The Night Falls and Before The Day Breaks were both co-composed, co-produced and played with Budd. Like the soundtrack to Mysterious Skin, both albums are slow, drifting pieces primarily utilising treated guitar and piano.

Guthrie has also collaborated with singer Siobhan de Maré (formerly of Mono) as the band Violet Indiana. Their first full-length album, Roulette, was released in 2001. A second album, Russian Doll, followed in 2004. In March 2006 Guthrie reported on his weblog that the group had started work again on new material.

A new solo album, Carousel, was released on Darla Records on 15 September 2009. Additionally, Guthrie issued the Angel Falls EP in early 2009, and the Songs To Help My Children Sleep EP in October 2009. A further EP Sunflower Stories has been recorded but a release date has not yet been given.

Guthrie's most recent releases are Emeralds (2011) and two collaboration albums with Harold Budd, Bordeaux and Winter Garden (with Eraldo Bernocchi) (both 2011). He played guitar on the Telefon Tel Aviv track "The Sky is Black", from The Birds EP (2012).^[3]

He currently works and lives in France with his wife Florence, their daughter Violette, and Lucy Belle, his daughter with Elizabeth Fraser.

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• Imperial (2003)
• Continental (2006)
• Carousel (2009)
• Emeralds (2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

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