Citation and Research Tools: For Legal Writing

Westlaw Next provides a citation generator for nearly all the legal documents in its databases.

Simply highlight the text you intend to cite and select "Copy with Reference" from the drop-down menu:

The text and citation will copy to the clipboard, so you can go into your word-processor and paste the text:

Note that the drop-down menu defaults to "Standard" which generally conforms to Bluebook. If you want to change to a specific state style of citation, the arrow next to "Copy with Reference" will allow you to change citation style:

Note the difference in citation format when you select "Florida" as the citation style. Always check the Bluebook and Florida Rule 9.800 to ensure your citation is correct. Although the automatic citations generally conform to Bluebook, abbreviations, punctuation, and the use of italics/underline will vary depending on the rules of the court (or your Professor)!

Correctcite is the commercial alternative to Lexis for Office. It is a toolbar add-on to Microsoft Word. It automatically updates in-text citations as your write your legal document. While writing, you press F2 and type your citation, then press F2 again to complete your citation. It will automatically update any text you indicate to be a "managed cite," fixing your abbreviations, commas, capital letters, and other formatting.

Lexis for Office is free for law students with their Lexis subscription and links directly to your research folders in LexisAdvance or old-school Lexis. 

Go to Apps & Tools in your LexisNexis account to download:

Lexis Advance has a similar tool to copy citations from the text of legal documents:

You can either select "Copy citation" from the top of the page for a basic cite. To get a pincite, select the text you wish to cite, then click on "Options for selected text..." and choose the option "Copy clip to clipboard"

A box with the citation text will pop up and allow you to use your browser to copy and paste it into your word processor. The pop-up allows you to choose to copy the text as a hyperlink, which will make your citation link back to Lexis Advance in your document. Be careful using this feature, as the hyperlinks will show up blue in your document. 

There is no option in Lexis to change the type of citation, so you're stuck with the Legal Document-style citation they give you.