I made a Bluebook citation generator - looking for feedback! Forum

[legaleasetech]

Hi everyone,

I’m a former law student and I wasted too much time with the Bluebook. So I made a Bluebook generator. It’s called LegalEase Citations.
https://legaleasecitations.com/

The way it works is you pick a source type, enter in some information, and the software returns a 100%-accurate Bluebook citation in all academic and non-academic formats.

The software now supports 11 different types of sources and includes examples and explanations throughout.

What features or improvements would you guys want to see in something like this? Really looking forward to hearing your feedback!

[LBJ's Hair]

How is this different than the cites that Westlaw generates when you copy text

[cavalier1138]

How is this different than the cites that Westlaw generates when you copy text

I'd assume the big difference is that these citations are correct for Bluebook standards, which is definitely not the case for Westlaw or Lexis auto-citations.

[LBJ's Hair]

How is this different than the cites that Westlaw generates when you copy text

I'd assume the big difference is that these citations are correct for Bluebook standards, which is definitely not the case for Westlaw or Lexis auto-citations.

They're pretty close, and the MS Word plug-in(s?) clean up the rest

[Halp]

Wait, which plugin? I’ve not yet found one that works. That would be a godsend. Or do you mean the integrated Westlaw thingie?

[legaleasetech]

How is this different than the cites that Westlaw generates when you copy text

My experience with Westlaw, Lexis, and other citation features was they got me in the ballpark for a particular citation but, often, the citation was plainly wrong.

There are simply too many Bluebook rules that rely on particular conditions and context. There’s no way to trigger these rules (and therefore, create an accurate citation) without getting far more input from a user.

This is the problem that I tried to tackle. The software does the obvious things like automatically applying the relevant Bluebook rules to inputted text and appropriately abbreviating names of things like reporters and entities. Where it goes a step further, in order to create a completely accurate citation, is the inclusion of dropdown boxes that cover all conditional and context-dependent scenarios.

[run26.2]

Two thoughts. First, nice work. That's impressive and cool. Second, wow that's a lot of work to do for a citation. I can't imagine doing that for all my citations. Why not just figure it out from the Bluebook?

[Fantasyfreak294]

Hi everyone,

I’m a former law student and I wasted too much time with the Bluebook. So I made a Bluebook generator. It’s called LegalEase Citations.
https://legaleasecitations.com/

The way it works is you pick a source type, enter in some information, and the software returns a 100%-accurate Bluebook citation in all academic and non-academic formats.

The software now supports 11 different types of sources and includes examples and explanations throughout.

What features or improvements would you guys want to see in something like this? Really looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Feedback: perhaps make it free to use? (I'm not saying forgo any revenue, but maybe switching to an ad revenue model instead, or a longer trial period so students can determine w/e or not it's useful for them? Not trying to minimize all your hard work, & I've no idea the analytics you did to see which method for revenue gen. was most effective for you)

[Swampcastle]

It would make sense to make it free to people with .edu's get them used to using it, then charging them once they graduate and are hooked.