Once There Was a Bluebook
Simple Justice:
Ilya Somin at Volokh renews his calls for the death of the Bluebook. For those who never enjoyed the rigors of law school, the Bluebook is what lawyers call a book entitled “A Uniform System of Citation.” When I went to law school, it was a little book with a blue cover. From what I read, it’s gotten larger. I assume it’s still got a blue cover, though I couldn’t swear to it.
Law students are expected to learn every rule and nuance of the Bluebook. Law reviews slavishly pour over it, vetting the articles of lawprofs to make sure that they conform to the rules in every respect. A capital letter here, a period there, makes all the difference. These are life and death matters for law review editors, and millions of pencil points have been sacrificed to the Bluebook gods. What a waste of good red pencils.
But what of the Bluebook to those of us laboring in the trenches? Here’s the scoop. We must be able to accurately and adequately communicate our citations to the courts if they are to be able to follow our arguments. Doing so largely requires us to use relatively standard citation form, which really isn’t a very big deal. Whether we include a space between “Fed. R. Crim. P.” or not doesn’t tend to create mass confusion. The judges get the message.
Once law school fades into distant memory, about 6 hours into our first post-law-school work day, the Bluebook is left in its place of honor on the shelf, never to be looked at again. Eventually, it is consumed by dust, such that its distinctive blue cover turns a lovely shade of gray. And there it sits until we die (or worse, retire).
The Bluebook is probably the biggest non-starter in the law. …