Legal Cititation

EndNote EndNote How To
1

I am using Endnote 9 for Macintosh. I need to cite several legal cases as well as a government document.

I need these outputs:

Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. United States (1958), 356 U.S. 1. 

and

United States Code. Title 15. Commerce and Trade, 15 USCS, Chapter 1. Monopolies and Combinations in Restraint of Trade, 2005 [available at http://uscode.house.gov/download/title_15.php].

I cannot find a citation format in Endnote that generates the above output.

Suggestions are appeciated

2

This is just a general suggestion just because I don’t work with legal documents.

It seems you need at least two reference types that fit your documents. You need to create custom reference type, or modify existing reference types such that all of your information is entered in appropriate fields in the Endnote database.

Then, you have to create “output style” that formats your database information.

It sounds a long shot, but in fact, it’s not that difficult. Once you get to know how Endnote works, it’s a pretty easy process.

Good luck.

3

Did you ever find a style that does BlueBook? My wife is a law student and could use it as well for her writing…

Adam

4

How do you create custom reference types? I don’t see that in the online help?? I’m willing to give it a shot, but need some basic direction to get started…

Adam 

5

You might start here:

http://www.library.uq.edu.au/endnote/aglc2/aglc2_ENX1.pdf

But from years of discussion on the old list, most law students seem to end up using more purpose built software… google “legal citation software”. 

6

Thanks for the link - I’ll take a look at it. And I’ll let my wife know - do lawyers not use Microsoft Word on a regular basis? Or are there just tools out there that add functionality?

I’ll google around…

Adam

7

Another Thomson Reuters company - Westlaw - has a legal writing and citation product called “CiteAdvisor”:

http://west.thomson.com/products/services/cite-advisor/default.aspx

This is likely something that larger law schools would have access to.

I have never used this product but did see a demo once and remember that it worked with MS Word.

This might be worth looking into.

Jason Rollins, the EndNote team