Michael R. Seidl, Ph.D. J.D.
                                   851 North Van Dorn Street
                                   Alexandria, VA 22304
                                   mseidl@nicom.com

Appellate Court and Circuit Administrative Division
ATTN: ABA Citation Resolution
Suite 4-512
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
Washington, D.C. 20544

Dear Sir or Madam:

     I am pleased to have the opportunity to comment on the ABA's 
Citation Resolution. I am a recent law school graduate, and I hold a 
Ph.D. in English literature; I think this gives me a useful 
interdisciplinary view on the importance of citations. Also, I 
presently clerk for a Federal judge, which I believe gives me a 
practical view on citations in action. The remarks that follow are 
entirely my own, and in no way reflect the opinions of any 
organization or of anyone but myself. 

     I approve, in premise, of the proposed modifications to citation 
format. Establishing a universal "generic" citation form (that is not 
the property of West or some other publishing organization) is an 
important step toward returning law to the public domain; one's 
ability to create an appropriately-cited legal document should not 
depend upon one's financial ability to access West's publications. 
Furthermore, the economy of style in the proposed modifications is a 
pleasant correction to the present complexity generated by the need 
to cite many different case reporters. However, any adjustment to 
the citation format is incomplete without more careful consideration 
of the purpose and deployment of citations. Just changing the 
citation format is, if you will allow me the simile, like repainting 
an old car: it may look better, but you will not get any additional 
mileage out of the work.

     The primary purpose of a citation is to allow one to quickly and 
easily find the cited material so that it can be checked for 
denotative accuracy and analyzed, in context, to determine its 
connotative accuracy. With present electronic technology, it is 
possible to file an electronic brief or other judicial document with 
hypertext links that allow one to jump from a citation to the 
material cited. In such a situation, the importance of the citation 
form declines because, ultimately, it is not the form of the citation 
that matters but its ability to lead us to the cited material: any 
accurate form suffices.

     In short, I believe that any revision to citation format should 
be less concerned with a cosmetic change in format -- a change that, 
by definition, will be only a stop-gap on the road to more user-
friendly electronic court documents -- and more concerned with 
developing: 

     1) Parameters for the filing of electronic judicial documents 
with hypertext/direct links to the cited material; and

     2) Provisions for developing a public database to which such 
links can be made without the current cost of electronic access 
through Lexis or Westlaw.

     Absent such forward-looking changes, any change to citation form 
is likely to require additional modifications in the near future, and 
citation forms are -- for obvious reasons -- not things that should 
be subject to frequent revision.

     Thank you for your consideration.

                                   Sincerely,

                                   Michael R. Seidl