Appropos Lynn Foster's message re Louisiana's new parallel citation, the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has adopted an
official parallel citation as of January 3, 1994. Here is our press
release on the topic.
FOR RELEASE IMMEDIATELY
HYPERLAW, INC.
HYPERLAW, INC. ANNOUNCES USE OF NEW SIXTH CIRCUIT FEDERAL
PARALLEL CITATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT ADOPTS
NON-PROPRIETARY CITATION
January 20, 1994, New York - HyperLaw, Inc. announced today
that it fully supports the new non-proprietary parallel
citation implemented beginning January 3, 1994, by the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
HyperLaw's President Alan D. Sugarman stated that the new
citation will be used in all HyperLaw CD-ROM products
including FEDERAL APPEALS ON DISC and UNITED STATES SUPREME
COURT ON DISC .
The Sixth Circuit stated:
"Electronic Citations. The electronic citation will assign a court-generated, vendor neutral, reference number to opinions at the time of their release. The electronic citation is intended to avoid the proliferation of various electronic citations developed by vendors and to provide a common reference for all users of electronic and CD-ROM systems. The electronic citation is considered to be a parallel citation to the opinion in addition to the citation in the published reporter series."
"The court encourages the use of the Sixth Circuit electronic citation by bench and bar when citing cases to or from the Sixth Circuit. While there will be no penalties for not using the electronic citation, the court and the bar will find it easier to retrieve cases from the various electronic publishers when the citation is used."
"The format of the electronic citation system, which is based on the recommendations of the Committee on Automation and Technology of the Judicial Conference of the United States is as follows: Jones v Smith, 1994 FED App. 1234P at 12 (6th Cir.)"
Associated with each electronic citation is a computer file name, "94A1234P.06".
Although the Judicial Conference recently decided to not adopt the citation system, the Sixth Circuit was permitted to experiment with the citation. The Third Circuit uses a similar notation but has yet to officially approve the citation format, and by rule requires use of the West Federal Reporter citation. HyperLaw had vigorously supported the Judicial Conference official public domain citation along with bar groups and other publishers, principally Mead Data Central.
Sugarman noted that the Sixth Circuit announcement is highly significant, and marks the beginning of public domain citations for federal court opinions. Importantly, the Sixth Circuit parallel citation includes a pin-point citation by speciying an official page number. Pin-point citation was not omitted fromt he final report of the Judicial Conference subcommittee.
Sugarman noted that this new development raises important issues:
Will the United States Supreme Court use the Sixth Circuit electronic citation when referring to Sixth Circuit decisions below. At present, when a Supreme Court opinion or order refers to a federal opinion below, it provides only the West Publishing Company citation, and does not provide the name, docket number, or date of the decision below.
What position on use of the Sixth Circuit electronic citation will be taken by the Editors of THE BLUEBOOK, compiled by the editors of the law reviews of Columbia, Harvard, Pennsylvania, and Yale Law Review and the MAROON BOOK compiled by the editors of the University of Chicago Law Review.
Will West Publishing Company, which described the citation scheme adopted by the Sixth Circuit as "a disaster for the legal systems", include the new citation, with internal pagination, on Westlaw and in its Federal Reporter Series publications.
How will Mead Data Central which supported the citation, implement the citation on Lexis?
HyperLaw's FEDERAL APPEALS ON DISC, first released in July, 1993, includes published decisions for 1993 from the twelve federal circuit appellate courts of general jurisdiction - the District of Columbia Circuit and the First through Eleventh Circuits, but not the Federal Circuit. Also included are unpublished decision from the First, Fourth, Eighth and Tenth Circuits. The 1993 year-end CD-ROM included nearly 10,000 1993 decisions fully searchable utilizing Folio Views software published by Folio Corporation, a subsidiary of Mead Data Central, Inc. A "run-time" version of the software is included on the CDROM. Also included on the recent CD-ROM is the United States Code current to January 1992.
The product is available through a variety of annual subscriptions plans. Subscribers may choose to receive updates on a monthly ($1,000/ year) or quarterly ($650/ year) basis. Sole practitioners have a special reduced rate of $450/year. New users may sample the product by purchasing a single CD-ROM for $150, and apply that amount toward a subscription.
For further information at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, contact Debra Nagle, Public Information Officer at (513) 684-2681.
For product information, contact HyperLaw, Inc., P.O. Box 1176, New York, NY 10023; Information 212-787-2812; 800- 825-6521; Facsimile 212-496-4138
On Mon, 17 Jan 1994, Lynn Foster, UALR Law Library wrote:
> On December 17, 1993, the Supreme Court of Louisiana issued an order
> requiring a "uniform public domain citation form" with a parallel citation
> to West's Southern Reporter, for all opinions and actions issued by the
> appellate courts of Louisiana after December 31. E.G.:
> Smith v. Jones, 93-2345 (La. App. 1 Cir. 7/15/94); 660 So. 2d 400.
> As you can see, the uniform public domain citation form consists of the
> "case name, docket number excluding letter, court abbreviation, and month,
> day and year of issue." The order further provides that "if a pinpoint
> public domain citation is needed, the page number designated by the court
> shall follow the docket number...."
> The court also states that opinions issued between Dec. 31, 1972 and Jan.
> 1, 1994, can have a parallel public domain citation following the So. 2d
> citation (but the parallel isn't required).
> Thanks to Carol Billings for sending me a copy of the order. Who's next?
>
> Lynn Foster
> lcfoster[_at_]ualr.edu
> 501-324-9975
Received on Thu Jan 20 1994 - 19:12:21 GMT
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