How to Cite a Supreme Court Case in Bluebook Format

U.S. Supreme Court cases are the most frequently cited source type in American legal writing, and formatting them correctly in Bluebook style is a core skill for every law student, clerk, and attorney. Whether you are citing Brown v. Board of Education in a constitutional law memo or Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in a current-events brief, The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st edition) lays out specific rules for case names, reporters, pin cites, and parentheticals that you must follow. This guide walks through the official template under Rule 10, the reporter hierarchy, worked examples covering landmark cases, short-form rules, and common mistakes.

If you want to skip the manual formatting and generate a citation directly, you can use the AllCitations Bluebook generator to format any case in seconds. But understanding the underlying Rule 10 structure is essential, especially for pin cites, subsequent history, and the short-form citations you will use throughout a document's footnotes.

The Official Rule (Bluebook Rule 10)

The Bluebook 21st edition governs case citation in Rule 10. For a standard U.S. Supreme Court case, the full citation format is:

Case Name, Volume Reporter First Page, Pin Cite (Year).

Applied to a real case:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954).

Each element follows specific rules:

• Case name is italicized (or underlined in some court submissions). Use the first-named party on each side. Abbreviate common words per Bluebook Table T.6 (e.g., "Corporation" becomes "Corp.", "United States" stays as "United States" when it is a party).
• Volume is the number of the reporter volume containing the case. For Supreme Court cases, this is the number that appears before "U.S." in the citation.
• Reporter for U.S. Supreme Court cases is "U.S." (United States Reports), the official reporter. When "U.S." is unavailable because the case is too recent, use "S. Ct." (Supreme Court Reporter) or, as a last resort, "L. Ed." or "L. Ed. 2d" (Lawyers' Edition).
• First page is the page on which the case begins in the reporter.
• Pin cite is the specific page you are referencing within the case. Pin cites are mandatory whenever you are quoting directly or referring to a specific passage.
• Year appears in parentheses at the end. For Supreme Court cases, no court abbreviation is needed in the parenthetical because "U.S." in the citation already identifies the court.

Reporter Hierarchy for Supreme Court Cases

Bluebook Rule 10.3 establishes a strict preference order for which reporter to cite when a case appears in multiple reporters. You must cite the highest-ranked reporter available at the time you write:

1. United States Reports ("U.S.") is the official reporter published by the Supreme Court. Always cite "U.S." when available. Cases decided more than roughly two years ago are typically available in U.S.
2. Supreme Court Reporter ("S. Ct.") is the West reporter. Cite this when U.S. is unavailable, which is common for very recent decisions that have not yet been published in the official reporter.
3. Lawyers' Edition ("L. Ed." or "L. Ed. 2d") is the LexisNexis reporter. Cite this only if neither U.S. nor S. Ct. is available (rare).
4. Westlaw or Lexis database citations are a last resort for decisions less than a year old that have not been published in any print reporter. Format: Case Name, No. XX-XXXX, 2024 WL 1234567 (U.S. June 30, 2024).

The hierarchy matters because editors and clerks will mark citations to a lower-ranked reporter as errors if a higher-ranked reporter is available. Always check the United States Reports first.

Worked Examples

Below are six worked examples covering the most common Supreme Court citation scenarios.

1. A Classic Case with Pin Cite

The standard format for a case you are quoting or referring to a specific page.

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954).

In this example, 347 is the volume, U.S. is the reporter, 483 is the first page, 495 is the pin cite, and 1954 is the year of the decision.

2. A Case without a Pin Cite

When citing a case for a general proposition (not a specific page), omit the pin cite but keep the first page.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803).

Note the older-style citation uses a parallel citation to the early reporter "Cranch" in parentheses because early U.S. Reports volumes had dual numbering.

3. A Recent Case in S. Ct.

For cases too new to appear in U.S. Reports, cite the Supreme Court Reporter instead.

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 143 S. Ct. 2141, 2163 (2023).

Note the abbreviation of "President" to "Pres." and "College" to "Coll." per Table T.6, and the use of "&" for "and" in case names (but not in textual sentences).

4. A Case with a Page Range

When a case has multiple plaintiffs or defendants, list only the first named on each side. Use a page range for pin cites that span multiple pages.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org., 597 U.S. 215, 231-32 (2022).

Here the pin cite is a range (231 to 232), written with a hyphen and the last page abbreviated. For a page range, drop repeated digits: 231-32, not 231-232.

5. A Case with an Italicized Signal

Bluebook allows you to introduce a citation with a signal like "see", "see also", "cf.", or "but see". Signals are italicized and followed by the citation (Rule 1.2).

See Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644, 675 (2015) (holding that the right to marry is fundamental and applies to same-sex couples).

The parenthetical at the end is an explanatory parenthetical describing the case's holding, a common Bluebook convention to give readers context without quoting extensively.

6. A Citation to a Footnote within the Opinion

When your pin cite points to a footnote within the cited case, use "n." for a single footnote or "nn." for multiple.

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 n.11 (1954).

Footnote 11 appears on page 495 of the opinion. This is the famous footnote citing the Kenneth Clark doll studies.

Pin Cites

Pin cites (also called jump cites) point readers to the exact page where a specific quote, holding, or fact appears. Bluebook Rule 10.1.3 requires pin cites whenever you:

• Quote directly from the case
• Paraphrase a specific holding or argument
• Refer to a specific fact or reasoning in the opinion

The pin cite appears after the first page, separated by a comma. For a single page, use just the page number. For a range, use a hyphen and drop repeated digits:

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954).

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 493-95 (1954).

The rule for dropping digits applies to the portion that remains the same. Write 493-95, not 493-495. For ranges crossing a hundred boundary, keep all digits: 295-305.

Parentheticals

Parentheticals after a case citation serve two functions: they identify the court (when not already implied by the reporter) and they explain the case's holding or relevance. For Supreme Court cases, the court is already implied by "U.S." or "S. Ct.", so the only required parenthetical is the year.

Explanatory parentheticals follow the year parenthetical and describe what the case holds or why you are citing it:

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) (establishing the principle of judicial review).

Explanatory parentheticals should begin with a present participle ("holding", "concluding", "noting", "reasoning") and be phrased concisely.

Short Forms

Once you have cited a case in full, subsequent references to the same case in the same document use a short form. Bluebook Rule 10.9 governs short forms for cases.

Id. (italicized, including the period) is used when citing the same source as the immediately preceding footnote, with no intervening authority.

1. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954). 2. Id. at 498.

The second footnote refers to the same case at a different page.

Shortened case name with "at" is used for subsequent citations that are not immediately preceding. Do not use "supra" for cases.

15. Brown, 347 U.S. at 495.

This is a common Bluebook-specific rule that confuses many 1L students: use the shortened case name, not "supra".

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Not italicizing the case name. Case names must be italicized (or underlined in some court filings). Forgetting to italicize is one of the most common Bluebook errors. Remember: case names are italicized everywhere, in the main text, in citations, in footnotes, and in parentheticals.

Using the wrong reporter. Always cite the highest-ranked available reporter. Citing a case in S. Ct. when it is available in U.S. is an error. Check the United States Reports first.

Forgetting pin cites. Every quotation and every specific reference must have a pin cite. "See Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)" is acceptable for a general proposition, but if you are quoting from page 495, the citation must include the pin.

Incorrect page range format. Page ranges drop repeated leading digits when they are unchanged: 231-32, not 231-232. Ranges crossing a hundred boundary do not drop digits: 295-305.

Using "supra" for cases. Supra is used for books, articles, and legislative materials, not for cases. For subsequent case citations, use the shortened case name and pin cite: "Brown, 347 U.S. at 495." Writing "Brown, supra note 1, at 495" is incorrect under Rule 10.9.

Using Id. without italics. The "Id." (and the period after) should be italicized together. Correct: Id. at 498. Incorrect: Id. at 498.

Missing or misplaced signals. Signals like "see", "cf.", and "but see" must be italicized. Writing see (no italics) or see (without italicized commas in see, e.g.,) are common errors.

Quick-Reference Table

---

Tools and Resources

• AllCitations Bluebook Generator: Enter a case name or paste a citation and get a correctly formatted Bluebook reference, including pin cites and parentheticals.
• Cornell Legal Information Institute: Free access to the full text of U.S. Supreme Court opinions. Use this to verify your citations against the authoritative source.
• Supreme Court of the United States Website: The official repository of Supreme Court opinions with slip opinions, bound volumes, and per curiam decisions.

For a refresher on Bluebook short forms across all source types, see our guide to Bluebook Short Form Citations: Id., Supra, and Shortened Forms.

---