Court case notation rules.
After judges make rulings on court cases. The decision made is documented in books known as legal reports for easy retrieval by practicing law professionals or students undertaking law courses. Some decisions are also published in newspapers, periodicals, and the internet. This makes it easy to retrieve information about the case whenever it is needed. There are different formats of citing a court case. The citation format depends on several factors such as jurisdiction, court, and type of case.
In APA format, the first thing to include is the name of the case. The name of the case comprises of both the names of the complainant and the accused, for example, James V. Henry. V, in this case, stands for versus. Apart from this abbreviation, other universal abbreviations that are widely accepted in court case citations include; Univ. for university and Co. for company.
The name is followed by the volume number, page number, and the decision of the court. Also, include the name of the court, jurisdiction and the date the decision was made. In case you don’t remember the exact date include the year of the case. In cases where the cases are complex with long histories and multiple courts and court dates. Choose another format.
In legal documentation such as briefs, the name of the case is either italicized or underlined. However, in academic legal writing like reviewing an article, the case name is not italicized or underlined. In some countries, instead of using V. as an abbreviation for versus. They use and or against.
A brief is a document that contains full information about a case. It outlines all the information about a case from the onset to the judgment. Briefs are mostly used to guide students undertaking law courses and lawyers. As a lawyer, it is good for you to understand all the details in your brief. Your client is not interested in the brief, they are interested in you winning the case. The judge also is not interested in it. They are interested in rational arguments that are related to the case. The brief only acts as a guide to the lawyer.
There are several things that you should include in your brief. The case name, what the case was all about, the judgment that was made. The part of the law that was applied in making the judgment, and the dispute between the two involved parties. One can also include additional information such as personal comments, and arguments of each party.
References
Cover, Robert M. “For James Wm. Moore: Some Reflections on a Reading of the Rules.” The Yale Law Journal 84.4 (1975): 718-740.
Reynolds, William L., and William M. Richman. “The Non-Precedential Precedent-Limited Publication and No-Citation Rules in the United States Courts of Appeals.” Colum. L. Rev. 78 (1978): 1167.
Flanders, Steven. “Local Rules in Federal District Courts: Usurpation, Legislation, or Information.” Loy. LAL Rev. 14 (1980): 213.
