Introduction to Basic Legal Citation - access-to-law home

implication. In decisions of the Alaska Supreme Court and briefs submitted to it, "AS" is
commonly used instead of "Alaska Stat."; in Kentucky it is understood that "KRS" stands for
"Kentucky Revised Statutes" and not statutes of the state of Kansas. At the extreme, this form
of state-specific citation dialect leaves off all explicit reference to the state. A reference in an
Ohio brief to "R.C." is understood as referring to Ohio's "Revised Code"; one in a New York
brief to a section of the "General Municipal Law" and one in a California brief to a section of
the "Penal Code" are understood as referring to the respective state's codified statutes.
§ 2-340. Statute Citations – Variants and Special Cases [BB|ALWD]
§ 2-340(1) Examples
– House Page Board Revision Act of 2007, Pub. L. No. 110-2, 121 Stat. 4.
– House Page Board Revision Act of 2007, Pub. L. No. 110-2,
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgibin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ002.110.pdf.
– Health Risk Limits for Perfluorooctanoic Acid and Perfluorooctane Sulfonate, 2007
Minn. Laws ch. 37,
http://ros.leg.mn/bin/getpub.php?type=law&year=2007&sn=0&num=37.
Special Case 1 – Session Laws: Don't cite a statute to the session laws (the compiled
enactments of a legislative body during a particular session) if a codified version will serve
your purposes. This principle confines session law citations to:
• very recent enactments (provisions not yet codified even in supplements or pocket
parts or online versions),
• enactments that are not codified because they are not of general applicability,
• situations where the reference is to enactment itself or to provisions that have since
been repealed or modified,
• provisions that are so scattered across the code that a reference to the session laws is
more efficient, and
• those rare cases in which the language in the codified version differs in some
significant way from the session laws.
A session law reference consists of: the name of the statute (or if not named "Act of [date]"),
its public law number ("Pub. L. No.") or equivalent state designation, and the source. In the
case of a recent enactment this will most likely be electronic. See § 2-110. Where a print
source is used the reference consists of a volume or year number followed by the name of the
publication, abbreviated ("Stat." or "U.S.C.C.A.N." in the case of a federal act) and a page
number. The year of enactment, in parentheses, is included in cases where that information is
not already part of one of the other citation components.
¡But see § 2-335!
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