Legal citation

The APA style guide recommends you use the legal style manual of your country to cite its respective legal source. The Canadian style guide for legal citation is the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, also known as McGill style. The latest edition is the 2023 (10th) edition. 

• Online access 
  • Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 10th edition, via Westlaw Next Canada
• Print copies at SFU Library: 
  • Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 10th ed., 2023 
  • Canadian Guide To Uniform Legal Citation, 9th ed., 2018 

The McGill style guide is a quadrennially-released style and citation guide for Canadian legal writing. Updates include emphasizing permalinks, giving higher "citable" status to online legal sources, citing Indigenous law sources, and providing guiding principles for citing a wide range of legal resources. 

Please confirm with your instructor on their citation style preferences, as the use of APA and McGill styles will be instructor-specific in most departments.

NEW - Summer 2024:

Good news! There is now an open access alternative to the traditional Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation: The Canadian Open Access Legal Citation Guide (COAL)/Guide canadien de la référence juridique en accès libre (RJAL).

 

About the guide: "The Guide is intended to be used throughout the legal field and incorporates feedback contributed by reviewers from Canadian courts, law firms, law journals, law societies, and law schools. COAL-RJAL is freely available on CanLII, allowing anyone requiring a Canadian legal citation guide to access it online without financial barriers". 

 

Please note that COAL is a citation guide, "not a style guide and does not provide instructions on formatting or writing style. Writers should consult instructions provided by the relevant court, agency, school, journal, or other organization for rules on formatting and writing style".

 

Quick guides to legal citation

• Legal Citation with the 10th edition of the McGill Guide (from Queen's University Library)
• Law: Legal Citation Guide (from UBC Law Library)
• Sweet and Maxwell Citing EU Content for Authors (guidance for citing European Union legal materials)

Writing

AI Guidance for Law Students (University of Windsor Law Library) 

How to Write a Case Brief