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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Research: Bluebooking

Guide to sources on how to conduct legal research in legal ethics and professional responsibility, including New York materials.

Citing Legal Ethics Materials: There some rules in the Bluebook which are specific to the citation of legal ethics materials:

Rule 12.9.5 covers citation of the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility and Opinions on Ethics. This rule is written for ABA codes and ethics opinions but can be used as a model for similar state materials (see T6 for abbreviations of institutional authors in citations), e.g.,

  • ABA: ABA Comm. on Pro. Ethics & Grievances, Formal Op. 35 (1931).
  • ABA: ABA Comm. on Ethics & Pro. Resp., Informal Op. 1414 (1978).
  • NYSBA: N.Y. Bar Ass'n Comm. on Prof'l Ethics, Op. 1182 (2020).

Rule 16.6.7 covers Proceedings, Regular Publications by Institutes, and ABA Section Reports.