March 17, 1997 Appellate Court and Circuit Administration Division ATTN: ABA Citation Resolution Suite 4-512 Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Washington, D.C. 20544 RE: Comments of the State Bar of Wisconsin to U.S. Judicial Conference in support of implementation of proposal adopted by ABA for federal courts In August 1996, the American Bar Association (ABA) overwhelmingly approved a resolution from its Special Committee on Citation Issues calling for state and federal courts to develop a standard citation system which would identify the citation on each decision at the time it is made available to the public. The resolution recommends that all jurisdictions adopt a system for official citation to case reports that is equally effective for printed case reports and for case reports electronically published. This comment is written on behalf of the State Bar of Wisconsin, which wholeheartedly supports the implementation of the ABA citation resolution by the federal courts. For informational purposes, effective January 3, 1997, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has implemented paragraph numbering in the electronic format of its cases. The federal courts should adopt the form of official citation for court decisions recommended by the ABA resolution. The costs of implementing such a citation system are minimal and are greatly outweighed by the benefits to the courts, the bar and the public in general. The courts, the bar, and the public would greatly benefit from the adoption of the standard citation system due to its timeliness, convenience and cost savings. In this age of computers and technology, the adoption of a standard citation system is an idea whose time has come. Continued proliferation of computers is certain. New computer technologies make it practical to provide case law to the courts, the bar and the public more effectively and less expensively than from books alone. The present system is tied to the use of paper as the medium and to dissemination by a small number of print publishers. The present system impedes the use of new technologies. The method of citing opinions to volume and page number is not well-suited for electronic databases. Through the widespread use of computers, court decisions have become available much more quickly than in the past. The proposed citation system would enable parties and the court to immediately, and permanently cite to a new decision. It would eliminate the dependence on citing volume and page numbers of printed case reports. The new system of citation would be both vendor-neutral and medium-neutral. The new citation system would be applicable to both books and computer databases. The courts will determine the citation, not private publishers. However, there will be no detriment to people using printed reporters. The same citations can be as easily located in the printed reporters as in the electronic databases. Both practitioners whose sole source of court opinions is written reports and practitioners who rely on electronic databases could easily use the exact same citation system. It would save considerable time by eventually eliminating the need to locate parallel cites. It is also more efficient for publishers of electronic databases because it eliminates the need to edit the databases to include parallel cites to the printed opinions after the opinions are published. This will result in lower cost and lower space requirements for electronic database providers. The time saved relates to efficiency for the courts, the bar, and the clients that they serve. Furthermore, the proposed method of citing to paragraphs rather than page numbers for pinpoint cites is much more efficient. The pinpoint citation to a specific paragraph number will facilitate and shorten the time of counsel and judges (and lower the legal charge to clients) to read and verify the authority cited in briefs. No longer will counsel and judges have to read long pages of text to locate the principle for which a case is cited as authority. The proposed citation system would be broadly applicable to all courts. The federal judiciary should take the lead and adopt it at this time so that state courts follow suit and adopt similar systems. This would promote a nationwide system of citation that would be uniform as between computer databases and books, and also among both federal and state courts. The adoption of the proposal will both promote a uniform nationwide system and prevent the creation of differing systems. The proposed citation system is consistent with the initiatives to use modem electronic technology to more effectively and cost efficiently provide governmental services to the public. The assignment of a sequential number to each opinion issued by the federal courts is not an expensive task. The inclusion of paragraph numbers within opinions can be automatically accomplished by the use of a word processing macro. No additional court personnel would be required to implement the system. The implementation of the citation system will permit the immediate permanent citation of any opinion. The Bluebook's new 16th edition, which provides guidance for legal citation, includes the citation format for public domain cases in new rule 10.3.1. Hope Viner Sanbor, What's New In Blue, Citation Guidelines Change Along With the Times, A.B.A.J., December 1996 at p. 16. CONCLUSION The new form of citation is vendor-neutral and medium-neutral. It can be used by any judge, lawyer, researcher or publisher. It does not require any licensing. It can be used by traditional print media, private computerized legal research services, CD-ROM publishers and other future formats. It is easily understood and implemented. For these reasons, the State Bar of Wisconsin urges the implementation of the ABA citation resolution. Respectfully submitted, David Saichek, President, State Bar of Wisconsin William J. Mulligan, Attorney for State Bar of Wisconsin