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Legal materials

Legal style references for Chicago (Footnotes)

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) provides alternatives for citing Canadian and UK legal materials, thus implying the appropriate style guide should be used for each country. Following the broad principle of adopting citation styles used within a specific jurisdiction, we recommend the use of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC4) for legal material. This style uses footnotes. See CMOS 14.170.

Legal materials

Footnote

Footnote Number Name of Act Year (Jurisdiction) pinpoint reference.

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

2. Public Prosecutions Act 1994 (Vic) s 46.

See AGLC4 Rules 3.1.1-3.1.6 for further explanation.
Bibliography

Name of Act Year (Jurisdiction).

Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).

Public Prosecutions Act 1994 (Vic).

See AGLC4 Rule 1.13.
Notes
  • For Acts, the details which must be included are:

1.Title of the Act - Put in italics.
2.Year - Put in italics.
3.Jurisdiction - Use abbreviation and round brackets. (See AGLC4  rule 3.1.3 for list of abbreviations)
4.Pinpoint - Identify the particular section, paragraph, part, schedule, etc. (See AGLC4 rule 3.1.4 for the appropriate abbreviations for pinpoint references to Acts.)
Footnote

Case Report Series organised by year.

Footnote Number. Name of Plaintiff v Name of Defendant [Year] Abbreviated report series Page number, Pinpoint.

Text

Lord Aitken outlined to whom a duty of care is owed when he answered his own question "Who is my neighbour?"3

Footnote

3. Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, 580.

See AGLC4 rule 2.2.1

Case Report Series organised by volume.

Footnote Number. Name of Plaintiff v Name of Defendant (Year) Volume number Abbreviated report series Page number, Pinpoint.

Text

Shellar JA discussed a traditional definition of assault and its reationship to battery.4

Footnote

4. Rixon v Star City Pty Ltd (2001) 53 NSWLR 98, 114 [56] (Sheller JA).

See AGLC4 rule 2.2.1
Bibliography

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562.

Rixon v Star City Pty Ltd (2001) 53 NSWLR 98.
Notes
  • See AGLC4  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, as in Donoghue above [ ]. If the reports are organised by volume number, put the year the case was decided in parentheses (round brackets) as in Rixon above ( ).
3.    Volume number - As noted in the year discussion, many case report series are organised by volume. Where this is the case, the volume number goes between the year and the abbreviation of the case report series, as in Rixon above. In the Rixon example, the volume number is 53.
4.    Report series – a reported case appears in a case report series. Use the abbreviation for the name of the report series, not the full title. Lists of report series and their abbreviations are to be found in Appendix A to the AGLC4 (print version) and from the La Trobe University Library's Law Guide: Online Case Reports. In Donoghue above, AC stands for Appeal Cases, and in Rixon above NSWLR stands for New South Wales Law Reports.
5.    Page - Put in the page on which the case report begins. In Donoghue above the page number is 562, in Rixon above the page number is 98.
6.    Pinpoint - Use this when you are referring to a specific page of the reported decision. Page numbers should be stated without brackets, as in Donoghue above, where the pinpoint reference is to page 580. If the case has paragraph numbers, use square brackets as in Rixon above, where the pinpoint reference is to page 114 and paragraph 56. If identifying the judge being cited, put their name in round brackets after the pinpoint, as shown in Rixon above, where the judicial officer being cited is Justice of Appeal Sheller. The judicial office is abbreviated as described in AGLC4 rule 2.4.1. In Rixon above, Justice of Appeal is abbreviated to JA and appears after the name: (Sheller JA).
7.    Bibliography – Omit the pinpoint reference and name of the judicial officer. 
Footnote

Footnote Number. Jurisdiction, Parliamentary Debates, Chamber, Full Date of Debate, Pinpoint (Name of Speaker).

Text

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."5

Footnote

5. Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 31 October 2006, 41 (John Howard, Prime Minister).
Bibliography Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 31 October 2006.
Notes
  • See AGLC4 rule 7.5.1
  • The details that must be included are:

1.    Jurisdiction – include the parliament being cited, Commonwealth or one of the States or Territories. In this example the jurisdiction is the Commonwealth (Federal) Parliament.
2.    Name - Parliamentary Debates is the correct name for Hansard.
3.    Chamber – Some parliaments in Australia have two chambers.  The Federal parliamentary chambers are the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some State Parliaments (NSW, SA, Tas, Vic & WA) also have two chambers, the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. The remaining states and territories (QLD, NT, ACT) have just one chamber, the Legislative Assembly. Add the name of the chamber to the citation. In the example above, the chamber is House of Representatives.
4.    Date – Include the full date of the debate.
5.    Pinpoint - Use this when you are referring to a specific page of the parliamentary debate. The page number in the example above is 41.
6.    Speaker - If a speaker is named, 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.
7.    Bibliography - Omit the pinpoint reference and the name of the speaker.