Skip to Main Content

Law

Cases

Cases (sections 1.1.1, 2.1-2.3 in OSCOLA Guide)

In-text

The first time you give the name of a case in the text of your essay, write the case name in full and italicise it. If you do this, it is not necessary to repeat the full case name in the footnote.

In text:

Lord Smith advocated a rule in Hannah Williams v Association of Cinemas.¹

Footnote:

¹ [2025] EWHC 365, [2025] 2 WLR 1232.

Footnotes

Footnote format:

  • Case name [Year of neutral citation] Court case number, [Year law report published] OR (Year case heard) Volume (if applicable) Law report series abbreviation First page of case, Pinpoint page number or paragraph number.

  • If pinpointing paragraph numbers, put them in square brackets. If pinpointing to multiple paragraphs, separate the paragraph numbers, in square brackets, with a comma, e.g. [31], [46]. If citing a span of paragraphs, put a dash between the first and last paragraph cited, e.g. [2]-[7].

Footnote example:

  • Page pinpoint: Smith v Jones [2011] UKHL 10, [2011] 1 AC 567, 569.

  • Multiple paragraph pinpoint: Smith v Jones [2011] UKHL 10, [2011] 1 AC 567 [2], [24].

  • Span of paragraphs pinpoint: Smith v Jones [2011] UKHL 10, [2011] 1 AC 567 [2]-[15].

Tips:
  • You can use proper abbreviations for the titles of courts and journals, but you must be consistent throughout. Find proper abbreviations through the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.
      • You can specify unusual abbreviations in a list at the start of your essay (not included in the word count), including your own legal abbreviations that are not available in the Cardiff Index.
  • Cite all cases as if you found them in print. You do not need to provide URLs to cases you find online.
  • Pinpoints:
    • If the page pinpoint reference is to the first page of the report, repeat the page number (e.g. Beattie v E & F Beattie Ltd [1938] Ch 708 (CA) 720, 720).
    • Separate multiple page number pinpoints by commas (e.g. Beattie v E & F Beattie Ltd [1938] Ch 708 (CA) 720, 721, 763).
  • Cases from other jurisdictions outside the UK: OSCOLA is vague about this and says to cite cases from other jurisdictions as they would be cited in their own jurisdiction but remove full stops from abbreviations. You can also put the name of the court or year of decision in brackets at the end of the footnote.

Table of Cases

Table of Cases Format:
  • Case name [year of neutral citation] Court case number, [year law report] OR (year case heard) Volume (if applicable) Law report series abbreviation First page of case

Table of Cases Example:

  • Smith v Jones [2011] UKHL 10, [2011] 1 AC 567

Tips:

  • Case names are not italicised in a table of cases
  • Unless there are very few cases, divide the table into separate sections for different jurisdictions

Case Names

Notes on case names (OSCOLA 2.1.1, pages 14-15)

  • "Where there are multiple parties, name only the first claimant and first defendant."

    • OSCOLA advises keeping citations concise, so if you need to refer to the full list of parties or "and others", you could do this within the body of your writing.

  • "Do not include expressions such as and another, which may appear in titles in law reports."

    • By contrast, if there are multiple authors in secondary sources, then you can use "and others" (page 33 of OSCOLA guide).

  • "Terms indicating corporate status (such as Ltd and plc) should not be omitted if included in the heading of the report".

Neutral Citations and Law Report Citations

Neutral citations and law report citations (sections 2.1.3, 2.1.4 in OSCOLA Guide)

  • Neutral citations were introduced in 2001, covering judgments from all divisions of the High Court, Court of Appeal, House of Lords and the Supreme Court. Any case heard in these courts after 2001 should have a neutral citation. If a case is unreported, the neutral citation will help you search for it.

  •  A neutral citation is a unique reference for a particular judgment of a case heard in a court, meaning neutral citations are independent ('neutral') of law reports. They give the year of judgment, the abbreviation of the court, and the judgment number (also known as a case identifier number).

  • Example:

Jones v Smith [2005] UKHL 5

This is the 5th case of 2005 in the United Kingdom House of Lords.

  •  

  • When searching for a case, for example in Westlaw, you will come across post-2001 cases with both a neutral citation and law report citation. There may be multiple law report citations to choose from. There is a hierarchy of law reports and you should choose the most authoritative one. Westlaw usually lists law report citations in order of hierarchy, with more authoritative citations at the top of the list. (More details below).

  • If a case only has a neutral citation (because the judgment was not reported in a law report), give only the neutral citation. Research note: in this situation, the case will not be findable in a law report series, so it must be searched for in an electronic source like Westlaw.

  • If a case is too old to have a neutral citation, give the court abbreviation in brackets at the end of the footnote. OSCOLA 2.1.5, 2.1.6, pp. 18-19 says: 'Indicate the court in brackets after the first page of the report, and before the pinpoint if there is one. […] If a law report citation ends with the identification of the court in brackets, the pinpoint follows the closing bracket, without any comma.’

    • Example without a pinpoint: Page v Smith [1996] AC 155 (HL).

    • Example with a pinpoint: Page v Smith [1996] AC 155 (HL) 157.

  • Note: EU cases do not have neutral citations; they need a case number. 

    • It's recommended to refer to the European Court Reports

      • Note: there are usually two volumes each year for the European Court Reports

Hierarchy of law reports, beginning with most authoritative:

  1. The Law Reports (Appeals cases (AC); Chancery Division (Ch); Family Division (Fam); Queen’s Bench (QB) or King’s Bench (KB))

  2. Weekly Law Reports (WLR)

  3. All England Law Reports (All ER)

  4. Law report series that specialise in a particular area, e.g. Environmental Law Reports

  5. Law reports in newspaper, e.g. The Times.

  • Tips:

    • If a case is reported in one of the official Law Reports, it must be the one you cite.

    • If Westlaw gives two citations for a case, this will be the neutral citation followed by the law report citation. Copy these and separate them with a comma.

    • Neutral citations are usually identifiable by a UK or EW court abbreviation.

    • If a case is unreported, you might find the judgment on the BAILII database.

Round or square brackets around dates?

Brackets around year dates in citations for law report and journal series:

  • Use square brackets [year] when the year is necessary to identify the law report volume and the series does not have consecutive volume numbers. This includes series that publish one volume per year and series that publish multiple volumes per year where the volumes are not numbered consecutively. Some series such as the Official Law Reports, including the Appeal Cases, sometimes have more than one volume each year, but they are not numbered consecutively:
    • Example 1: Page v Smith [1996] AC 155 (HL) because one volume of the Appeal Cases was published in 1996. 
    • Example 2: Barrett v Enfield LBC [2001] 2 AC 550 (HL) because multiple volumes of the Appeal Cases were published in 2001, but the series is not numbered consecutively (i.e. each year begins with a volume 1). 
  • Use round brackets (year) when the year is not necessary to identify the law report volume and the series has consecutive volume numbers, i.e. there is only one volume 1 of a series throughout its lifetime of publishing.
    • Example: Barrett v Enfield LBC (1999) 49 BMLR 1 (HL) because there is only one volume 49 of the BMLR and it was published in 1999.