A little more than four years ago, the Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal for, among other things, an attorney's numerous Bluebook violations, stating that "[p]erhaps [] counsel would benefit from obtaining a copy of the Bluebook for reference in the future." Trevarthen v. Treadwell, No. COA12-11, 2012 N.C. App. LEXIS 797, at *12 (July 3, 2012).

While it is hardly debatable that The Bluebook is needlessly complex and cumbersome for everyday law practice, practitioners are wise to use proper Bluebook citations for this interesting (and completely true) credibility reason:

[I]t's not just the judges who read the briefs. Judges have law clerks. Most law clerks are top-of-the-class recent law school graduates who served on the law review, [where they spent most of their time] [f]ixing cites in proposed articles to conform to the Bluebook. So when law clerks read your brief and see lots of Bluebook mistakes, they might think, "I don't know who this lawyer is, but I know they weren't on law review."

Judge Richard Dietz, N.C. Ct. App., NCBA Appellate Practice Section CLE:I Never Thought of That! (October 2, 2015).

We can wish that our Appellate Rules required lawyers to follow The Bluebook edition in place when we graduated from law school. However, Appendix B to the Appellate Rules requires citations to "conform to the most recent edition" of The Bluebook. As of May 2015, the 20th edition is the newest citation sheriff in town.

So, what's changed from the 19th to the 20th edition? This list of notable Bluebook changes will help you fake law review, rock-star status.

However, words in a case name that would ordinarily be abbreviated according to T6 should not be abbreviated if the words are part of a state, country, or other geographical unit that is the entire name of a party. (R10.2.2)

Correct:South Dakota v. Dole
Incorrect:S. Dakota v. Dole

Original quote:If "the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute," that is the end of the matter. Weissman v. CIA, 565 F.2d 692, 695 (D.C. Cir. 1977).
Correct:The dispositive question is whether "the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute." Marks v. CIA, 590 F.2d 997, 1008 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (quoting Weissman v. CIA, 565 F.2d 692, 695 (D.C. Cir. 1977)).
Incorrect:The dispositive question is whether "‘the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.'" Marks v. CIA, 590 F.2d 997, 1008 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (quoting Weissman v. CIA, 565 F.2d 692, 695 (D.C. Cir. 1977)).

If the ebook uses location numbers rather than page numbers, use "loc." to indicate where the cited material can be found. The Bluebook does not require a comma between the title of the ebook and the loc. information.

Example:Ronald Collins & David Skover, When Money Speaks loc. 2992 (2014) (ebook).

Example:Richard Posner, How Judges Think 269 (2010) OR
Richard Posner, How Judges Think 269 (2010).

Note: North Carolina's appellate courts rarely use large and small caps in their opinions. Unless and until the justices and judges adopt a different preference, the current recommendation is to only use standard letters, underlined or italicized, in appellate filings.

1. Law Dictionaries: The citation formats for Ballentine's Law Dictionary and Black's Law Dictionary have been updated to include the searched word or phrase before the source and to omit the page number after the source. (B15.1; R15.8(a))

   Correct:Good-Faith Bargaining, Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009) OR Good-Faith Bargaining, Black's Law Dictionary(9th ed. 2009).
   Incorrect:Black's Law Dictionary712 (9th ed. 2009)

   Notice the title "Black's Law Dictionary" is underlined or italicized, consistent with the typeface used for the remaining citations in your document.

2. Party Name Abbreviations: When citing a case in a citation clause or sentence, the general rule is to abbreviate party names according to Table T6. (B10.1.1)The most significant change in T6is that the abbreviation for County changed from "Cnty." to "Cty." (T6)

   Correct:Painter v. Wake Cty. Bd. of Educ.
   Incorrect:Painter v. Wake Cnty. Bd. of Educ.

3. Alterations and Quotations Within Quotations: Internal quotation marks should be omitted if the opening and closing quotation marks of the original quoted material appear at the beginning and end of the new quotation. (R5.2(f)(i))Additionally, a "quoting" parenthetical must be appended (R10.6.2; R1.5(b)), but an "internal quotation marks omitted" parenthetical is not permissible. (This requirement was removed from R5.2(d)(i)and R1.5(b)).
4. General Rules for Case Names, Geographical Terms: Omit all geographical designations that follow a comma. (R10.2.1(f))

   Correct:City of Arlington v. FEC
   Incorrect:City of Arlington, Texas v. FEC

5. Parallel citations to online material: For material available in print form, you may provide a parallel citation to an Internet source to improve reader access to the material. (B18.1.2; R18.1)Do not include "available at" in the citation. (B18.1.2)Do not include a "last visited" parenthetical, as this is used only used in direct Internet citations. (B18.1.1)

   Correct:Am. Mining Cong. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, No. CIV. A. 93-1754 SSG (D.D.C. Jan. 23, 1997), http://wetlands.com/ tulloch1.htm.
   Incorrect:Am. Mining Cong. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, No. CIV. A. 93-1754 SSG (D.D.C. Jan. 23, 1997), available at http://www.wetlands.com/ tulloch1.htm.

6. Citations to ebooks: The 20th edition introduces a citation format for ebooks, explaining that the print versions of books are authoritative but that ebooks may be cited if they are the sole media through which the book is available. (R15.9(c))To indicate that an ebook is being cited, place an "ebook" parenthetical after the date of publication. Use pincites, when required, if the ebook uses page numbers.

   Example:Anne Umland & Blair Hartzell, Picasso:The Making of Cubism 1912-1914, 25 (2014) (ebook).

7. Large and Small Caps: While the use of large and small caps has historically been reserved for academic citations, practitioners may now use large and small caps in briefs to indicate authors of books, titles of books, and titles of periodicals. (B2)
8. Find the Most Recent Law School Graduate You Know: Sometimes the easiest way to fake Bluebook, rock star status is to be a groupie. Recent law school graduates have often spent years on law review honing their citations skills using the most current edition of The Bluebook. They are proud of their skills and can usually spot Bluebook (and other proofing) errors faster than the Scorpions can Rock You Like a Hurricane. This also creates an excellent opportunity for you to trade old-world mentoring for new-world expertise.

Article originally published in North Carolina Bar Association Appellate Practice Section's newsletter, Per Curiam,Volume 4, Number 1,May 2017, and is posted with permission. It was co-authored by Allegra Collins, assistant clinical professor of law at Campbell Law School.