New Legal Citation Guidelines for Case Names

The Canadian Citation Committee has developed new guidelines for how to properly identify parties involved in court cases.

"[6] The digital revolution also improves courts’ ability to disseminate their own decisions. As courts are increasingly assigning to their decisions a neutral citation which includes a case name, they need guidance as to how to create it. Unfortunately, publishers’ current case naming practices, besides their lack of uniformity, would often require editorial and legal training of office personnel, which courts can’t always afford. "

"[7] This is why new guidelines are needed. The underlying rationale for the case name creation has changed since the development of the 1990 (...) standards. Now that case law dissemination and legal research has entered the digital realm, the case retrieving role of the case name is becoming less salient. Furthermore, the current over-designed case naming practices seem to be unique to Canada. Elsewhere, even in countries that share the same case law reporting tradition, case names are prepared with only a few rules easily laid out over a few pages. It is the opinion of the authors of the present guidelines that the adoption of a simpler scheme will permit regular court personnel to prepare a name for each case in a more straightforward manner. Consistency will be achieved simply, cheaply and easily."

The proposals will be forwarded to the Canadian Judicial Council for discussion and approval.