Ilya Somin has a post up at the Volokh Conspiracy on an issue that, although esoteric, is near and dear to my heart. The Bluebook is an over sized, ridiculously opaque and complicated manual that governs the form of citations to source materials in scholarly work in almost all publications, as well as briefs and other documents filed in most courts. I have long believed, beginning during my tenure as a managing editor of my law school’s law review, that the Bluebook rules are needlessly complicated and enormously wasteful. If the purpose of citation is to enable a reader to easily locate source material, it is almost certainly true that the cumbersome Bluebook rules are not really necessary. Certainly for practicing lawyers and judges Bluebook rules and format are little help, and not much more than a source of frustration or amusement, mostly honored in the breach. I applaud Professor Somin for his stand against the Bluebook. Abolish it, I say.
(Hat tip: Feddie at Southern Appeal)
Filed under: Legal Writing , Bluebook, citation, Legal Writing
I take the fraternity pledge’s perverse pleasure in the bluebook now — having attained mastery over the needless rules, I now love them like the grammar nerd loves the serial comma.
As a former law review editor I can appreciate where you’re coming from. But in the real world it is a colossal waste of time and money.