A Modest Proposal For Bluebook Reform
Two law professors offer their (humorous and satirical) idea for improving the dominant system of legal citation.
It seems that The Bluebook, the leading legal-citation manual (sorry Maroonbook), is going through a rough patch. It’s struggling to adapt to the online world. It’s facing copyright challenges. And it’s suffering from some self-inflicted wounds, namely, Bluebooking errors and typos.
Two professors at Savannah Law School, Marc Roark and Warren Emerson, think they can make the Bluebook better. From the abstract of their new paper on SSRN:
Currently, The Bluebook recommends twelve signals that give direction to the author’s intended use of sources. Bluebook signals communicate how the author believes the work cited is relevant to the proposition. But Bluebook signals could communicate so much more. This Essay recommends thirteen new signals for The Bluebook’s next edition.
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My initial reaction was, thirteen new signals? Aren’t there more than enough already? And I say this as a former law school gunner with an insanely tabbed Bluebook.
But then I clicked through to Roark and Emerson’s article, which won me over. Let’s look at some of their proposed new signals:
B.S. – A slightly more inflammatory way of expressing disagreement with the validity of an argument than the traditional “but see or contra.”3
3 B.S., H.G. FRANKFURT, ON BULLSHIT (2005) (describing the epistemological theory of bulls**t, which the authors firmly believe is bulls**t).
“B.S.” is probably the most useful signal since “See.”
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Tit – The title was on point; the rest of the work was disappointing.7
7 Tit, RICHARD POSNER, LAW AND LITERATURE (2002) (more appropriately named “I hate Law and Literature”).
Look, Judge Posner doesn’t pull his punches (so when he actually likes something, it’s worth noting).
O.M.G. – Cited article makes such an incredibly bad argument it’s hard to believe even a law journal would publish it.8
8 O.M.G., William C. Bradford, Trahison des Professeurs: The Critical Law of Armed Conflict Academy as an Islamist Fifth Column, 3 NAT’L SEC. L.J. 278 (2015).
Yes, Bradford’s article really was that bad. As some of you may recall, he actually resigned over it (and other issues).
Roark and Emerson’s article is a fun read. Critics of legal education might wonder why law professors are being paid to produce such pieces — as the authors might say, “O.M.G.” — but in their defense, it’s only four pages. So check it out via the link below!
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Signals [SSRN]
Earlier: A Bluebooking Error In… The Bluebook?
An Embarrassing Typo… In The Bluebook?
WTF Bluebook?! Even More Bluebooking Errors In The Bluebook
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