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button How to interpret abbreviations
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This guide will help you to read a citation so that you can find a case in a law report.

Citations

Cases are normally referred to by way of the names of the parties concerned in the action.
So, where a court action is brought by somebody called Harriman (the Claimant) in dispute with somebody called Martin (the Respondent), the case can be referred to as:

HARRIMAN v MARTIN (said as Harriman and Martin)

or

R. v SMITH where the claimant is the Crown (i.e. the state).


However, this does not tell us the date of the case or where it can be found in the law reports or journals. Therefore, each case has a unique citation or reference:

HARRIMAN v MARTIN [1962] 1 WLR 739

This tells you precisely where to find the case in the law library - Weekly Law Reports for 1962, volume 1, at page 739.


How to interpret abbreviations

All citations use abbreviations to quote sources.
This list provides a quick guide to the most commonly used abbreviations for law reports and journals held in the University Library at Chelmsford.

You will soon recognise the more common abbreviations for law reports and journals, but in the meantime, these sources will also help you:

Raistrick, Donald. Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations. Bowker-Saur 1993. This is the most comprehensive hardcopy index of abbreviations. Unfortunately it is now rather old. Copies are held at both the Chelmsford and Cambridge sites.

Cardiff Index to legal Abbreviations
A searchable database of abbreviations which has the advantage of being regularly updated.

Top Tips

• Legal textbooks always carry a table of abbreviations explaining the abbreviations that appear in the book. So if you find an abbreviation that you don’t understand in a book, look to the front of the book first!

• Current Law Case Citators, Current Law Monthly Digest, Halsbury’s Laws of England and other publications in the law library also carry tables of abbreviations.

• Don’t guess! Some students assume Crim. LR is Criminal Law Reports and spend fruitless time trying to find a series of law reports that doesn’t exist. Look up Crim. LR and see what it really stands for.




Media neutral citations

A case citation style has also been developed to accommodate the fact that full text judgments are now retrieved from electronic databases before appearing in hardcopy. This style is called a Media Neutral Citation.

Media Neutral Citations lack a volume number and use the abbreviation of the court rather than a law report.

(EW stands for England and Wales)
United Kingdom House of Lords [year] UKHL number
United Kingdom Privy Council [year] UKPC number
Court of Appeal (Civil Division) [year] EWCA Civ number
Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) [year] EWCA Crim number
e.g. R v. Haynes [2004] EWCA Crim 390

High Court:
Chancery Division [year] EWHC number (Ch)
Patents Court [year] EWHC number (Pat)
Queen's Bench Division [year] EWHC number (QB)
Administrative Court [year] EWHC number (Admin)
Commercial Court [year] EWHC number (Comm)
Admiralty Court [year] EWHC number (Admlty)
Technology & Construction Court [year] EWHC number (TCC)
Family Division [year] EWHC number (Fam)

e.g. King v. Sec. State for the Home Dept. [2003] EWHC 3831 (Admin)

To find the text of the judgment, it is recommended that you use either Westlaw or LexisLibrary.


Hierarchy

When citing cases from law reports there is a preferred hierarchy.
“If a case is reported in the official Law Reports published by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales, that report should be cited. These are the most authoritative reports; they contain a summary of argument; and they are the most readily available.
If a case is not (or not yet) reported in the official Law Reports, but is reported in the Weekly Law Reports or the All England Law Reports, that report should be cited.
If a case is not reported in any of these series of reports, a report in any of the authoritative specialist series of reports may be cited. “
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/797.htm

However, the neutral citation precedes the Law Report in which it has been published. If the report has not been published then the media neutral citation stands alone.

An example of a correct hierarchical citation is shown here:

Jennings V. CPS [2005] EWCA Civ 746; [2005] 4 All E.R. 391; Times, July 12, 2005.

Further help