For classes such as Business Law, Criminal Law, Ethics, or Writing, you will be using APA or MLA format. This FAQ shows what to do if you need to cite an actual court case or a state or federal law for your APA or MLA paper.
NOTE: If you are a Legal Studies major, all court cases, laws and law review articles will probably be cited according to The Bluebook, not APA or MLA. The Westlaw legal database gives references only in the Bluebook/ALWD legal citation style, so for citing in LAW#### courses, go to this FAQ: Can Westlaw help me get legal citations?
In Nexis Uni, you can easily get an APA, MLA (or Bluebook) cite by clicking on the Export Citation button, and picking the proper format:
Cool v. United States, 409 U.S. 100, 93 S. Ct. 354, 34 L. Ed. 2d 335, 1972 U.S. LEXIS 9 (Supreme Court of the United States December 4, 1972, Decided ). https://advance-lexis-com.ezproxy.library.berkeley.org/api/document?collection=cases&id=urn:contentItem:3S4X-D240-003B-S003-00000-00&context=1516831.
For citations you can't get preformatted, use the guidance given for the formatting style your professor wants you to use:
- APA:
APA uses a legal style basically taken from the Bluebook for court cases and laws, which has not changed from the APA 6th to the 7th edition. But if you are citing articles about cases, you can use a regular APA journal, magazine or newspaper citation as an example. Otherwise, follow these guidelines:- Introduction to APA Style Legal References
https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/02/introduction-to-apa-style-legal-references.html - Citing Court Decisions in APA Style
https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/10/citing-court-decisions-in-apa-style.html
- Introduction to APA Style Legal References
- MLA:
- ​Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style
https://style.mla.org/documenting-legal-works/
This MLA website has examples for court cases, laws, etc. MLA fits most legal cites into the basic MLA style of author, title, location, date. Because it's important what version of a document you see in MLA, you should put the website or database where you saw it (like the Legal Information Institute website or Westlaw or Nexis Uni) as the larger "container" in the cite.
- ​Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style
Here's a law review journal article found in Westlaw, which does not have APA or MLA cites.
The items needed to create a citation are pointed out on the page by the notes in the red text boxes:
Sample citations for this article:
- MLA (8th edition):
Christopher, Catherine Martin. “Nevertheless She Persisted: Comparing Roe V. Wade's Two Oral Arguments.” Seton Hall Law Review, vol. 49, 2019, pp. 307-352. Westlaw, 1-next-westlaw-com.ezproxy.library.berkeley.org/ Document/Ic6f84c911f7b11e9a5b3e3d9e23d7429/
[Note: this is a shortened URL. It follows MLA rules for shortening database URLs, since the full URL is over 4 lines long, and it won't work unless you are already logged into Westlaw] - APA (7th edition):
Christopher, C.M. (2019). Nevertheless she persisted: Comparing Roe v. Wade's two oral arguments. Seton Hall Law Review, 49, 307-352. https://scholarship.shu.edu/shlr/vol49/iss2/2/
[Note: this URL links to the website of Seton Hall Law Review journal. It was found online to follow APA guidelines for when the article is found in a database, and the URL won't work if your readers don't have access to the database. It's also much shorter than the Westlaw link] - Bluebook (for LAW #### courses):
Catherine Martin Christopher, Nevertheless She Persisted: Comparing Roe V. Wade's Two Oral Arguments, 49 Seton Hall L. Rev. 307 (2019).