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Chicago Citation Guide (17th Edition): Gov't Documents & Legal Materials

Government Documents & Legal Materials

Note!

The Chicago Manual of Style, like both MLA and APA, defers to The Bluebook for legal citations.

Legal publications only need to be cited in your footnotes, not the bibliography (unless you have a secondary publication, like a book in which the legal publication appears, in which case you'd use the citation format for that publication).

If you get stuck or have any questions, drop by the Library Welcome Desk or send an email to owhlibrary@andover.edu.

General Format

Laws are initially collected in the United States Statutes at Large (Stat.), and later are incorporated into the United States Code (U.S.C.). These publications are broadly called reporters.

  1. Name of the Bill, vol# Reporter Name series# (year), url.

Examples

  1. Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (2012).
  2. Homeland Security Act of 2002, 6 U.S.C. §101 (2012).
  3. Chinese Exclusion Act, 22 Stat. 58 (1882), https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47&page=transcript.

General Format

  1. Name of the Bill, Bill No., No. of the Congress, section # (year).

Example

  1. Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act, H.R. 1225, 116th Cong. (2019).

General Format

The full case name in the first citation will be plain text, but when you abbreviate for the shortened note, italicize.

You only need to add the abbreviated name of the court before the year if it's not clear from the reporter info.

What the heck is a "reporter"?  It's not a journalist! It refers to the published "reports" that officially collect/publish the court decisions. When you see something like "588 U.S. 310," that's the reporter: volume 588 of the United States Reports series 310.

Full Note:
  1. Name1 v. Name2, volume# Reporter Name (abbrev.) series# pg (Name of Court (abbrev.) Year), url.
Concise Note:
  1. Name, Reporter at page#.

Examples

With URL:

  1. State v. Griffin, 211 W. Va. 508, 566 S.E.2d 645 (2002), http://www.courtswv.gov/supreme-court/docs/spring2002/30433.htm.

US Supreme Court Cases:

  1. Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n, 558 U.S. 310 (2010).
  2. Citizens United, 558 U.S. at 322.
  3. Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015).
  4. Students For Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 20-1199 (2023) (Jackson, J., dissenting).

With a Court Specified before Year:

  1. Profit Sharing Plan v. Mbank Dallas, N.A., 683 F.Supp. 592 (N.D. Tex. 1988).

General Format

  1. Published Title of the Recorded Testimony, Before the Relevant Committee, number of the Congress, page# (year) (Speaker's Name, Title and Affiliation).

Example

  1. Homeland Security Act of 2002: Hearings on H.R. 5005, Day 3, Before the Select Comm. on Homeland Security, 107th Cong. 203 (2002) (statement of David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States).