MLA Citing: The Basics

At the very heart of the Modern Language Association’s citation style for legal writing lies an effort to create a clear and uniform system for properly identifying and referencing sources. MLA advocates urge all writers to determine the most important information necessary for the reader to locate the source being cited and to strive to present this information in a consistent way. While the precise details of this approach can be somewhat difficult to decipher at first, understanding this basic principle will make the rest of learning the system fall into place.
According to the MLA’s own guidelines, the purpose of citations is to establish where information came from and to "build[] credibility by connecting ideas with documented research." The main takeaway to all writers who are creating MLA citations for legal cases is this: "Cite sufficiently so that your reader can find what you are referring to and do everything you can to ensure that your reader knows what you are referring to . "
Within this system, "titles" play a particularly important role. While many of us may be used to thinking of the title of a case as simply the name of the principal parties involved in the case (for example, Smith v. Jones), in MLA those titles often refer instead to the name of the judicial decision itself, and so MLA citations frequently use very lengthy titles. And while the way in which full citations appear on a works cited page may appear overwhelming, the truth is that for all of the possible inconsistency that exists among different cases, the structure of the citations themselves is primarily quite formulaic, with only a few key details that need to be identified.
Finally, it is critical to remember that unlike the Bluebook, MLA does not have any special formatting requirements for how citations should be presented on a works cited page. And in-text citations should always be used notated solely with the parenthetical abbreviation and number corresponding to the numbered entry on the works cited page for a given case.

Key Components in Citing Legal Cases

The first step in citing a legal case in MLA format is to decide how you want to do it. As mentioned previously, one has the option to choose between the Basic and Advanced Formats. Once the format has been chosen, there are a couple of essential elements that must be included regardless of which format is used.
The case name must be included. A case name gives the reader the information needed to identify the case. It includes the names of the parties involved. It is also the first element in the citation. This should be done in title case using italics. For example, Johnson v. Smith would be typed like this: Johnson v. Smith.
The volume number must also be included. The volume number is the number of the book or journal that contains the case. It is placed before the next element in the citation, the reporter abbreviation. This is the abbreviation of the name of the reporter (or series) in which it was published. It is always abbreviated and italicized. After the reporter abbreviation, add the page number of the publication on which the case can be found. It may not be preceded by the word "page." In parentheses, include the year of decision. It is not separated by periods. The last element is a URL or DOI if the case was found on the internet or in a database.

Putting the Citation Together: The Step-by-Step Process

The MLA provides a basic formula for how to construct your citation for a legal case: Name of Court. Title of the Case, volume number Reporter abbreviation page number (court where decided year decided). Abbreviation of database or website name.
Like the MLA citation for any literary work or secondary source, this is an ordered list. This allows us to parse the citation into its parts and construct our citation one segment at a time. Let’s deconstruct our example: U.S. Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (Supreme Court 1954). Justia. 1 – Name of Court Since we are using the official citation, the Court as a whole gets priority. When constructing your citation, always start with the Supreme Court, rather than the individual justices who made a decision. 2 – Title of the Case In general, use the Latin abbreviation of the parties, as shown in the example. You are welcome to use a longer form, such as "Brown against the Board of Education" if you wish. 3 – Volume Number This is the volume number of the Reporter containing the official copy of the case. In other words, it’s the first number on the spine of the book you’re pulling. It’s important to note that when the case is published, the case might be moved into a different volume of the Reporter. As a rule, the first citation for a case should use the original Reporter citation. For example, even though Brown v. Board of Education ended up on page 483 of volume 347 of the United States Reports, the official version was published in volume 347; thus, the citation uses the one found in volume 348. 4 – Reporter Abbreviation The Reporter shares its first initial with the Court. Thus, if you’re using the Cornell OWC for your legal citation, the reporter you are referencing is named the United States Reports, abbreviated as "U.S." As much as possible, make sure to use the abbreviation for that particular Reporter. For the U.S. Supreme Court, that would be U.S. Though the U.S. stands for the United States, you will not use that abbreviation if you are citing Ninth Court decisions, because that Court’s official Reporter is called the Pacific Reporter and the abbreviation is P. 5 – Page Number This is the more detailed portion of our citation. The case itself starts on this page number, and subsequently includes all the pages in that Reporter that follow, with the addition of the page numbers of any separate opinions. The American Bar Association has a great resource on how to read court decisions, and can help give context to each part of your decision. The page numbering of the Reporter might vary, depending on the Reporter in which the case was published. The examples in the pages below are based on U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the Justia version of court decisions, which is accessible for free online. For the official page numbering, check with your local library or court law library, or consult the link above. 6 – Name of Court Where Decided This is one of the parts of the citation you have seen before in other MLA citations. The citation includes: "Supreme Court," meaning the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case. 7 – Year Decided This is the year of the case’s decision. You’ve seen the abbreviation "Supreme Court" in a few other citations above, which is the point of these citations. The first time you cite a case, you should include the abbreviation of the database from which you are drawing. Now that you know this one citation, and have seen others, we can look further at a few various examples.

Common Mistakes and Tips to Avoid Them

When it comes to legal case citations, some of the pitfalls that can wreak havoc on your project are:
Omitting the Court Information – The majority of legal cases will have a State and Circuit listed. You want to have this information to avoid confusion in potential duplicate cases. While it isn’t always an issue in local case, having this information available provides clarity for your reader .
Using Italics – In legal case citations, italicizing too many components can be confusing and is unnecessary. For example, only italize the title of the case itself, not the pocket part (the printed legal resource that contains the case).
Confusing Parentheses – With a couple of exceptions, citation elements contained in parentheses do not go italics as previously mentioned. You do not need to italicize the state or circuit information, but you should still italicize the name of the reporter.

Helpful Resources for Accurate MLA Citing

With the formalization of the Bluebook, it is no longer sufficient to look for citations in other legal documents. You need to refer to the Bluebook itself in order to correctly cite to legal cases. However, everything, including the Bluebook, has migrated to the World Wide Web, and there are tools and resources available there to assist you in creating an accurate citation.
Those of us old enough to have toiled in the print world can probably remember spending hours over one well-placed reference book after another to check and recheck our citations. Others of you are probably all too familiar with visiting Cite This For Me to simplify bibliographic entries in your academic papers.
There are a number of apps and websites available to you now that assist in creating legal citations, providing additional flexibility and functionality where the older hard-copy methods offer nothing, or have limited offerings. In some cases, the function is that of a citation manager or management system—say, Zotero or EndNote; while in others it is that of a dedicated tool, such as Cite This For Me. Most citation managers will include the option to export a case citation, thereby giving you the ability to automatically create a legal citation. But the success and utility of the proper citation will depend on how robust the software is and whether or not it is current.
Cite This For Me is a general citation manager. You can usually find it and its many variants on every professor’s syllabus. The long and short of it is that you search for the case and select it, and the software will generate the Bluebook citation. There is an online version as well as extensions for Firefox, Microsoft Word and Google Docs. While at times it does work remarkably well, it doesn’t always know how to handle complex cases. However, the generated citations do tend to be a fair bit more accurate than a lot of the older options on the market. That said, always double-check your citations.
If you are doing research and writing using Microsoft Word, the citation manager built into the software package may prove a good alternative. It works by asking you to identify the type of source you are using, then allowing you to enter specific informational elements. In the case of a legal case, you can use the manual entry option to add the relevant portions of the case into a structured format where they will be added to your bibliography, Works Cited, or Reference page. Like Cite This For Me, the citations are generally pretty good. Again, make sure you check them and ensure the finished product is correct.
Zotero is another great resource, and its recent case law module automatically identifies and inputs Bluebook style case citations, citing to both the United States Report and the official National Reporter System (N.R.S.) version, thereby giving you more flexibility than a lot of other options.
Purdue Owl is a great place to find basic MLA and Bluebook quotation and citation guides. They update the site regularly, so it can be a bit hit or miss, but it does work well. They also have download options for the reference handbooks, which proves to be invaluable if you have physical limitations or just need to keep track of a large amount of information.

Examples of Legal Case Citing

A few practical examples of legal case citations are given below.

  • (1) State case: Hernandez v. State, No. 2021-02248, 2012 WL 1234567 (Tex. Ct. App. April 12, 2012).
  • (2) Federal case: Jaime v. United States, 110 F. 3d 1234, 1257 (9th Cir. 1997).
  • (3) State and Federal case: In re McDonald, 100 P. 2d 546 (Cal. 1940) and The People v. Fidelity & Casualty Company , 5 Cal. 2d 480, 484, 54 P. 2d 24, 26 (1936).
  • (4) Court rules: Baxter v. City of Los Angeles, 282 Cal. App. 2d 450 (Cal. Ct. App. 1969), as modified February 4, 1969 (Cal. Ct. App. 1969) (citing Cal. Rules of Court, rules 1590 and 211). Note: The relevant Court rule is cited in the text of the case and that citation is appropriately used.