To quote legal sources correctly, reproduce the language exactly as it appears in the original, format the quotation based on its length, flag any change you make with brackets or ellipses, and attach a citation that pinpoints the page where the words appear. Those four habits cover almost every quotation question you will face, whether the source is a Supreme Court opinion, a federal statute, or an unpublished district court order sitting on Westlaw.
Short Quotations and Block Quotations
Length controls format. A quotation of fewer than fifty words runs inline, inside double quotation marks, with the citation following the closing quotation mark at the end of your sentence.1Legal Information Institute. Basic Legal Citation – 6-100 Quoting The reader moves through your argument without a visual break.
At fifty words, the quotation becomes a block. Indent the entire passage from both margins, drop the quotation marks, and single-space the text even if your document is otherwise double-spaced.1Legal Information Institute. Basic Legal Citation – 6-100 Quoting The indentation itself tells the reader everything inside is verbatim. The citation sits on a new, unindented line directly below the block rather than tacked onto the last quoted sentence.
You can also set a shorter quotation as a block for emphasis. The Bluebook allows it, but the technique only works when used sparingly. A brief that indents something on every page trains readers to skim past the indented material.
Marking Changes You Make to a Quotation
Readers assume everything between the quotation marks is exactly what the source said. When that is not quite true, you need to show your work.
Brackets
Square brackets signal that you altered the original. The most frequent use is adjusting capitalization so a quoted fragment fits your sentence. If the source began a sentence with “Poets,” and you are dropping that language into the middle of your own sentence, you write “[p]oets.” The same bracket convention works in reverse when you need to capitalize a word that was lowercase in the source.
Brackets also let you substitute a clarifying word for a confusing one. If the opinion says “he violated the statute” and your reader has no way to know who “he” is, write “[Defendant] violated the statute.” Anything inside brackets is understood as your language, not the court’s.
The notation [sic] goes immediately after an error in the original and tells the reader the mistake was there before you arrived. Use it sparingly. A bracketed correction is often cleaner than a flagged error.
Ellipses
When you cut words from the middle of a quoted sentence, replace them with three spaced periods, one space on either side.2The Bluebook Online. The Bluebook Online – 5.3 Omissions If the omission crosses a sentence boundary (end of one sentence into the beginning of the next), use four periods: the first closes the original sentence and the remaining three form the ellipsis.
Do not place an ellipsis at the very start or the very end of a quotation. Readers already know the language came from somewhere larger. Ellipses mark cuts inside the quoted passage.
Added Emphasis
If you italicize part of a quotation to draw attention to it, the citation must include “(emphasis added)” so the reader knows the italics are yours. When the source itself emphasized the language, the parenthetical reads “(emphasis in original).” If the citation needs more than one parenthetical, “(emphasis added)” follows any notation about the weight of the authority, such as a flag identifying a concurrence or dissent.
The Citation That Follows the Quotation
Case Citation Basics
Every legal quotation needs a citation that identifies exactly where the words came from. For a case, the standard format gives the volume, the reporter abbreviation, and the first page of the opinion. Supreme Court decisions appear in the United States Reports, abbreviated “U.S.” A citation to Brown v. Board of Education reads 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Lower federal courts and state courts have their own reporters and abbreviations.
The Pinpoint Cite
A quoted citation also needs a pinpoint cite (also called a pincite or jump cite), which gives the specific page where the quoted language appears. It goes after a comma following the first page number. If the Brown quotation sits on page 495, the citation reads 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954). Omitting the pincite forces anyone checking your work to read the entire opinion to find the quoted words.
Parentheticals
If the quoted language comes from a dissent or concurrence rather than the majority opinion, the citation must say so in a parenthetical following the date: (Sotomayor, J., dissenting). A majority opinion carries the force of law; a dissent does not, and a reader who sees a strong-sounding quotation deserves to know which they are looking at.
Two other parentheticals show up constantly. “(Internal citations omitted)” tells the reader the original quotation contained its own citations that you deleted for readability. “(Internal quotation marks omitted)” tells the reader the source was itself quoting someone else and you stripped out the nested marks. Both keep the quoted text clean while disclosing what you changed.
Introductory Signals
The word that introduces a citation describes how closely the source supports your point. No signal means the source directly states the proposition. “See” means the source clearly supports it but requires a small inferential step. “Accord” means a second jurisdiction aligns with the authority you already cited. “Cf.” means support by analogy. On the opposite side, “contra” means the source flatly contradicts your point, and “but see” means it indirectly supports the opposing conclusion. The wrong signal is not merely a formatting slip; it misdescribes the relationship between your authority and your argument.
Quoting Statutes
Statutes use a different format than cases. A federal statute citation gives the title number, the abbreviation “U.S.C.” for United States Code, and the section number with any subsections: 42 U.S.C. § 405(c)(2)(C)(ii). Nothing is italicized, and no punctuation separates the elements. If the statute is currently in effect and has not been recently amended, you can leave out the date. The Internal Revenue Code has its own accepted shorthand; “I.R.C. §” may be used in place of “26 U.S.C. §.”3Legal Information Institute. Basic Legal Citation – How to Cite Constitutions, Statutes, and Similar Materials
Quoting Cases That Are Not Yet in a Print Reporter
Some opinions you need to quote have not yet been published in a bound reporter. For those, cite the docket number, the electronic database citation (Westlaw, Lexis, or similar), the star-page number for your pincite, the court abbreviation, and the full date. For example: Ahmed v. Noem, No. 25-1351, 2025 WL 2299447, at *19 (D.D.C. Aug. 8, 2025).4Cornell Law School. Introduction to Basic Legal Citation Once the case is assigned a reporter volume, swap the electronic citation out for the print one. Some courts also accept a skeletal citation with blank underlines where the volume and page will go, but that only works if you intend to update the filing later.
Cleaning Up Heavily Nested Quotations
Court opinions quote earlier opinions, which quote still-earlier opinions, which quote treatises. Traditional Bluebook rules required you to preserve every layer by alternating double and single quotation marks and attaching a “(quoting …)” parenthetical for each source in the chain. The result often looked like scrambled punctuation.
The 22nd edition of the Bluebook addressed this. You may now remove internal quotation marks, brackets, ellipses, internal citations, and footnote numbers, and adjust capitalization without bracketing it, as long as the cleanup serves readability rather than changes meaning. A parenthetical at the end of the citation discloses the modifications. The buried sources inside the quotation no longer need to be individually cited. For passages that have been quoted and re-quoted across decades, the simplification is substantial.
State Courts Do Not All Use the Bluebook
Several states publish their own citation manuals for filings in their courts. Some replace Bluebook conventions outright; others treat the Bluebook as a baseline and add local requirements for citing state reporters, session laws, or administrative codes. Before you file in an unfamiliar court, check whether the jurisdiction has published its own citation guide or local rules on quotation formatting. A brief that follows the Bluebook perfectly can still be bounced for ignoring the court’s own style rules.
Verify Every Quotation Before You File
A misquotation to a court is not just an embarrassment. ABA Model Rule 3.3 prohibits lawyers from knowingly making a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal and imposes an ongoing duty to correct any false statement previously made. The rule also requires disclosure of controlling authority directly adverse to the client’s position, even when opposing counsel has not raised it.5American Bar Association. Model Rules of Professional Conduct – Rule 3.3 Candor Toward the Tribunal These duties run through the conclusion of the proceeding and override attorney-client confidentiality.
Generative AI has produced a new failure mode: quotations and citations that do not exist. In Mata v. Avianca, attorneys submitted a brief containing fabricated case names, invented quotations, and fake reporter citations generated by ChatGPT. The court found they had acted in bad faith by failing to verify any of the citations even after opposing counsel raised concerns, imposed a $5,000 penalty, and ordered the attorneys to notify each judge falsely named as the author of a hallucinated opinion.6Justia. Mata v. Avianca, Inc., No. 1:2022cv01461 – Document 54
The pattern continues. In Gauthier v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (2025), a court sanctioned an attorney $2,000 for filing a brief with AI-hallucinated citations, finding a violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)(2), which requires attorneys to certify that legal contentions are warranted by existing law.7Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure – Rule 11 Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers A growing number of federal courts now have standing orders requiring attorneys to verify all AI-generated content before filing, including every citation and every quotation. Some go further, authorizing judges to require sworn disclosure of which AI tools were used and which portions of the brief contain AI-generated material. Consequences for non-compliance range from stricken filings to monetary sanctions, disciplinary referrals, and dismissal.
The working rule is simple. Every quotation in a legal filing has to be checked against the original source, every time. AI tools can draft and research, but the attorney who signs the filing owns every word inside the quotation marks.