Citations, explained

A legal citation is a standardised address for one exact legal document — the way lawyers point at a specific judgment, statute, regulation, or court rule without ambiguity. Like a postal address, each part narrows it down. You do not need to be a lawyer to use them: if you have a citation, you can paste it in and go straight to the document.

Reading a few common shapes

[2023] CSOH 41
A "neutral citation" for a court judgment: year in square brackets, court code (CSOH = Court of Session, Outer House, Scotland), then the judgment number — the 41st that court issued in 2023. UK and Irish courts use this pattern: [2018] NIQB 101, [2020] EWCA Civ 123.

410 U.S. 113
A US "reporter" citation: volume 410 of the United States Reports (Supreme Court decisions), page 113 — that's Roe v. Wade. Volume · reporter · page.

Super. R. Civ. P. 12
A court rule: Rhode Island Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 12. Rules of court say how litigation is conducted — deadlines, filing formats, motions.

32006R1907
A CELEX number, the EU's document id: sector 3 (legislation), year 2006, R (Regulation), number 1907 — the REACH chemicals regulation. The EU also uses ELI web addresses like data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2006/1907/oj.

15 U.S.C. § 78j
A statute: title 15 of the United States Code, section 78j. The § sign just means "section".

What the /cite endpoint does

Every island (dataset site) with citable documents has a /cite?q=<citation> endpoint. Paste a citation and it:

Resolves exactly when the document is here — you get the document id and a link, with confidence: "exact".
Handles pinpoints — a citation pointing INSIDE a document, like Rule 12(b)(6) (paragraph (6) of subdivision (b) of Rule 12). The lookup finds Rule 12 and tells you which pinpoint you asked for.
Answers honestly — found: false means this island genuinely does not hold that document. It never fuzzy-matches you to something that merely looks similar; at most it offers clearly-labelled candidates.

Each island's /about page lists which citation families it answers and what its citations look like.

Why this matters

Full-text search finds documents that mention your words; a citation lookup finds the document. When another document, a brief, or an AI assistant references "[2023] CSOH 41", resolving the citation is the only reliable way to land on exactly that judgment — search can be misled by quotations, summaries and later cases discussing it.

Questions or a citation that should resolve but doesn't? Highlight text on any island's /about page and leave a comment — it lands directly with the maintainers.