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does anyone use citation software? are there any free 'programs' or 'applets' on the internet that people use?

Lexis and Westlaw can do the cite for you. It's usually correct.

kalvano wrote:Lexis and Westlaw can do the cite for you. It's usually correct.

Nooooo. It's not. Unless you mean, "it's mostly correct for federal court cases."

I imagine you'd spend more time double-checking the computer-generated cite and fixing small errors than just looking up the cite in the first place.

You can just copy and past the cite from the top of the case, citing cases isn't that complicated

Renzo wrote:

kalvano wrote:Lexis and Westlaw can do the cite for you. It's usually correct.

Nooooo. It's not. Unless you mean, "it's mostly correct for federal court cases."

It was almost always correct for me in WestlawNext, but I also made sure it was set to give me Texas cites.

Oban wrote:You can just copy and past the cite from the top of the case, citing cases isn't that complicated

Uh, yeah most of those are wrong...at least with spacing.

Citation is relatively easy outside of the context of writing competitions, and if you use any software for those, you are in serious trouble.

How much do courts actually care about cites being perfect?

Veyron wrote:How much do courts actually care about cites being perfect?

Judge Easterbrook.

Sounds to me like someone is trying to take an easy way out of bluebooking for the law review writeon and or a bluebook exam....

Aqualibrium wrote:Sounds to me like someone is trying to take an easy way out of bluebooking for the law review writeon and or a bluebook exam....

Yeah, those weird-ass cites wouldn't even be close to correct.

Veyron wrote:How much do courts actually care about cites being perfect?

Are you kidding? There are judges that will throw a bona fide tantrum if briefs aren't stapled or bound the way they prefer.

Stop trying to cheat on your write-on.

watwat wrote:Stop trying to cheat on your write-on.

If there was actually software that did it, how would it be cheating? Why would a law review care if you can do it by hand if you never would have to actually do it that way? Do you go to one of those law schools that makes you learn how to look up cases in a book even though we all have Westlaw?

Triangles wrote:

watwat wrote:Stop trying to cheat on your write-on.

If there was actually software that did it, how would it be cheating? Why would a law review care if you can do it by hand if you never would have to actually do it that way? Do you go to one of those law schools that makes you learn how to look up cases in a book even though we all have Westlaw?

Uh, presumably you would need to understand the citation which ties in with being able to write them.

Triangles wrote:

watwat wrote:Stop trying to cheat on your write-on.

If there was actually software that did it, how would it be cheating?

Generally there is a body of rules, which you violate. Hope that clears it up for you.

WestLaw Next's cites are generally decent when using "Copy with Reference (standard) except that they don't abbreviate enough of the words listed in T6 of the BlueBook. Also for state cases they usually insert multiple citations, one of which you'll have to delete (usually the citation to the specific state reporter).

Write-OnCompetitionHonorPolicyFAIL.

Renzo wrote:

Veyron wrote:How much do courts actually care about cites being perfect?

Are you kidding? There are judges that will throw a bona fide tantrum if briefs aren't stapled or bound the way they prefer.

Uh, I already have a proclivity towards grammatical neuroticism, this is not going to be good for my mental health. I see nightmares in my future "NOOOOOOOOOO, I should have checked T6 too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

probably a dumb question,

does anyone know about/used Citrus, the Automatic Bluebook Citation Software?

Does it save much time?
Does it actually meet normal writing requirements?

Thanks

Westlaw Next does okay for federal cases, although it fails to abbreviate and incorrectly abbreviates some words and court names. As others have said, cases are mostly pretty easy to cite.

How much do judges care? It depends on the court, the judge, and the region. (The real question, though, is how much does your employer care. The briefs I've seen from big law type firms are immaculate.) In trial courts, at least the federal court in the middle of nowhere where I'm summering, people submit absolute crab. I don't think I've yet seen a submission that is properly cited, including from my office.

Judges are rarely gonna throw anything out based on cites. It's more about establishing credibility, as is generally the case with attention to detail issues. You should learn how to cite properly, and no software is gonna be able to do it for you. The Bluebook is a bitch, but you can get relatively familiar with it fairly easily.

And yes, using software will usually be an honor code violation for write-on. And won't help you with the hard cites anyway. Write-on is a good time to learn how to cite.

Bronte wrote:And won't help you with the hard cites anyway. Write-on is a good time to learn how to cite.

Yeah, the cites on ours sucked. Damn sadistic Law Review editors.

kalvano wrote:

Bronte wrote:And won't help you with the hard cites anyway. Write-on is a good time to learn how to cite.

Yeah, the cites on ours sucked. Damn sadistic Law Review editors.

I was definitely doing some cursing during write-on.

WestlawNext ALWD pinpoint cites my state's cases accurately other than two easily fixable flaws which take far less time to fix than actually writing out the pincites.

It does the fedcourt local rule perfectly.