What format is frequently used for citing legal cases?

The format frequently used for citing legal cases is the footnote. In legal writing, footnotes are commonly employed to provide a source or additional information without interrupting the flow of the main text. They allow the writer to reference legal cases by providing the case name, volume number, reporter series, and page number, offering readers immediate access to the original source. This practice ensures clarity and provides proper attribution, which is essential in legal documentation. Footnotes are particularly useful in legal briefs, legal opinions, and scholarly articles where references to precedent cases are necessary to support legal arguments or analyses.

Other citation formats, such as endnotes or parenthetical citations, are used in various academic fields and can be common in legal writing as well, but footnotes are the traditional and widely accepted method in legal contexts, particularly for citing cases, statutes, and secondary sources. Key citations, while relevant in law, refer to specific citation styles often used in legal research but do not represent the general format for citing cases specifically.