Citation Frustration

Ever feel like the rules for legal citation are wildly inconsistent?  You are not alone.  Nor are you imagining things. 

In a forthcoming review of the twenty-second edition of The Bluebook:  A Uniform System of Citation, M. Burke Craighead—former Editorial & Strategy Chair of the Harvard Law Review—gives a fascinating insider’s perspective on the revision process, along with an explanation for why both perceived and real inconsistencies exist.

Craighead notes that his review is not a defense of The Bluebook but more of an explanation for why inconsistencies exist and a call to examine legal education more broadly. 

He first unmasks the editorial process, revealing several reasons that inconsistencies and seemingly arbitrary rules arise.  They include:

1. Student responsibility. Craighead first notes that “[n]o other profession in the world tasks students with developing its citation style guide. Yet, the legal profession has largely offloaded this task (along with the task of publishing legal scholarship) to second- and third-year law students.”[i]  And he concludes that “[t]he consequences of placing such immense power in the hands of a few students include arbitrariness, contradiction, and hubris.”[ii]  Some of the key problems he identifies include (1) inconsistent commitments by the four cooperating schools, e.g., The Yale Law Journal abolished its Bluebook editor position in 2023; (2) inconsistent commitment by individual students tasked with editing, i.e., not all students devote the same amount of time and energy or commitment to deadlines;  (3) lack of enforcement to ensure completed work, i.e., if one journal fails to submit its edits in a timely fashion, there is little the other journals can do short of litigation; and (4) inconsistent internal policies for each participating journal, e.g., extent of authority for journals to make certain decisions.[iii]
2. Unclear purpose and politics. Craighead next notes that there are conflicting views on The Bluebook’s purpose, specifically whether it should have a social justice dimension and how its purpose may be affected by politics.[iv]  By way of example, he identifies a disagreement among the editors as to whether Palestine should be included in Table T10.3 (identifying abbreviations for various countries and regions), in light of the ongoing war in Gaza.[v]  He also notes disagreement as to whether The Bluebook’s rules are meant to be prescriptive or descriptive—an issue brought to the surface by a debate over practitioners’ increasing usage of the “cleaned up” parenthetical—a practice not previously authorized by The Bluebook[vi]

He next addresses some common suggestions for and criticisms of The Bluebook, such as the suggestion that it include fewer—but broader—rules to aid utility and the criticisms that each new edition contains either unnecessary or insufficient changes.[vii]  He notes the balancing act editors must engage in to maintain both practitioner and academic engagement with The Bluebook’s rules and avoid risking their disregard.[viii]

Craighead then ties the editorial issues with revising The Bluebook to what he identifies as issues in legal education generally.  First, he notes that, with the exception of journal members, students’ (and later practitioners’ and academics’) understanding of legal citation becomes fixed after their 1L year because they are not expected or required to revisit the rules after that, despite changes that may arise.[ix]  Next, he draws a parallel between the prescriptive-descriptive debate over citation rules and legal education, i.e., whether law schools ought to focus on how law and society should operate versus how they actually operate and black-letter legal doctrine.[x]  Finally, he notes that both The Bluebook and law schools provide necessary focal points (“mutually salient and . . . mutual best response[s]”) for the profession.  In other words, just as law schools determine which areas of law are necessary to the profession and, therefore, should be taught to students, The Bluebook determines, for example, how different font styles should reflect different source materials, all in the name of uniformity for common understanding.[xi]

Craighead concludes by noting that perceived flaws in legal citation rules are a result of flaws baked into legal education and that, if we wish to resolve the issues with The Bluebook, we must first resolve the issues in law schools.[xii]

[i] Craighead, Burke, The Bluebook: An Insider’s Perspective, pg. 3 (May 12, 2025). Michigan Law Review, Volume 124 (forthcoming 2026), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5271305 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5271305.

[ii] Id.

[iii] Id. at 3-4.

[iv] Id. at 5.

[v] Id.

[vi] Id. at 7.  Craighead explains that Bluebook editors were divided in that some resisted adding the parenthetical to avoid the appearance of letting practitioners dictate citation rules, while others worried that failure to address it would give the appearance that The Bluebook was outdated.  Id.  In the end, the compromise was to include a rule allowing a “citation modified” parenthetical, which serves the same purpose as the “cleaned up” parenthetical.  Id.  The prescriptive-descriptive debate is also one that plagues dictionary editors.  See, e.g., merriam-webster.com, A Word on ‘Descriptive’ and ‘Prescriptive’ Defining, available at https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/descriptive-vs-prescriptive-defining-lexicography#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20all%20dictionaries%20may,a%20word%20should%20be%20used (last accessed June 6, 2025).

[vii] Id. at 8, 13.

[viii] Id. at 13.

[ix] Id. at 14.

[x] Id. at 16-18.

[xi] Id. at 18-19.

[xii] Id. at 20.