Looseleaf & Services
Database numbers, star pages and topical services, and when a court asks for or bars them.
Plenty of decisions never get a reporter page. Westlaw and its rivals number them anyway, and topical services print some in volumes of their own. Such a number is one company’s label for a file; no book holds the page. So anchor the citation in facts anyone can look up: docket, court and date. Then put the database number on top for its subscribers. The diagram takes apart a Second Circuit summary order cited from Westlaw, with the label that circuit’s rule calls for.
An unreported appellate order cited from a database
Loucks v. Kijakazi, No. 21-1749, 2022 WL 2189293, at *2 (2d Cir. June 17, 2022) (summary order).
- 1 case name
- 2 docket number, as the court writes it
- 3 database number: year, code, document number
- 4 star page: this database only
- 5 court
- 6 full date: the number has none
- 7 the label the court’s rule asks for
22.1Reading a database citation
In the print and Kindle editions
22.2Reporter, service, database or docket: which comes first
In the print and Kindle editions
22.3Westlaw, Lexis and Bloomberg Law numbers
In the print and Kindle editions
22.4When a court asks for, shapes or bars a database citation
In the print and Kindle editions
22.5Docket number and date: the vendor-neutral core
In the print and Kindle editions
22.6Looseleaf, topical and reporting services
In the print and Kindle editions
22.7Topical services you will meet in court citations
In the print and Kindle editions
22.8Short forms
In the print and Kindle editions
22.9Errors to catch
In the print and Kindle editions