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Legal materials

Legal style references for Chicago (Author-Date)

The Chicago Manual of Style provides alternatives for citing Canadian and UK legal materials, thus implying the appropriate style guide should be used for each country. In Australia, we recommend the use of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC4) for legal material. This style uses footnotes.

  • If you are using a small amount of legal material, limit those to in-text references ONLY using the same information you would use in an AGLC4 footnote. We have provided some examples below.
  • If you are using more than a few legal references you may need to supplement the author-date system with footnotes (see AGLC4).

See CMOS 14.269.

Legal materials

In-text citation

(Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) sch 2)

(Public Prosecutions Act 1994 (Vic) s 46))
Notes
  • See AGLC rule 3.1.
  • For Acts, the details which must be included are:
    • Title of the Act - Put in italics.
    • Year - Put in italics.
    • Jurisdiction - Use abbreviation and round brackets.
    • Pinpoint - Identify the particular section, paragraph, part, schedule, etc. (See AGLC rule 3.1.4 for the appropriate abbreviations for pinpoint references to Acts.)
In text citation   

(Rixon v Star City Pty Ltd (2001) 53 NSWLR 98, 114 [56])
Notes
  • See AGLC rule 2
  • The details which must be included are
  1. Case name - Cite only the first plaintiff and defendant. Use italics for the names of the parties.
  2. Year - If the volumes of the law report are organised by year, put the relevant year in square brackets [ ]. If the reports are organised by volume number (i.e. the year is not an essential part of the citation of the relevant law report), put the year the case was decided in parentheses (i.e. round brackets) ( ). Note that some reports have changed from one system to the other. For example, for volumes of the Victorian Reports prior to the year 2000, put the year in square brackets; from 2000 onwards use round brackets.
  3. Volume number - As noted, many reports are organised by volume number. However, even where a law report series is organised by year, some years may have two or more volumes per year. For example, [1996] 2 VR is the second volume of the Victorian Reports for the year 1996.
  4. Report series - Use the abbreviation for the name of the report series, not the full title. The report itself should indicate the relevant abbreviation. Lists of report series and their abbreviations are to be found in Appendix A to the AGLC and in Peter Butt (ed) Butterworths Concise Australian Legal Dictionary (LexisNexis Butterworths, 3rd ed, 2004), Appendix B.
  5. Page - Put the page at which the case report begins.
  6. Pinpoint - Use this when you are referring to a specific page of the reported decision. Page numbers should be stated without brackets. If the case has paragraph numbers, use square brackets as in the example above. If identifying the particular judge being cited, put their name in round brackets after the pinpoint (See AGLC rule 2.4.1).
In-text citation

(Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 31 October 2006, 41 (John Howard, Prime Minister))

The Prime Minister, Mr Howard predicted that "in the foreseeable future nuclear power could be cheaper than the use, in a cleaner fashion than fossil fuel" (Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 31 October 2006, 41).
Notes
  • If a speaker is included their first and last names should be included.
  • If the speaker is in a position of relevance, e.g. Prime Minister, Attorney General add details after their name.