Free case law? Cites that never change — from slip opinion to published opinion? Cites that are the same online and in books? Cheaper reporters? More accurate cites? Too good to be true? It is true. It is called "uniform citation."

If adopted, the benefits of uniform citation would be enormous. In 1996 the cost of Arizona Reports increased more than 20 percent, while inflation ran only three percent. Still worse, this increase occurred while Arizona law began appearing free on the Internet, first from Division 2 and now Division 1 of the Court of Appeals. Soon, the State Bar’s electronic collection of Arizona appellate cases will be free. But case citation today still depends on a proprietary system from an era where all publishing was in book format.

We are asking that Arizona appellate courts start issuing opinions that contain everything needed to cite to them. Future Arizona cases would be cited by name, year of decision, jurisdiction, case number, and, if necessary, the particular paragraph within the case. The jurisdiction information would be based on postal abbreviations: the Arizona Supreme Court would be AZ and the Arizona Court of Appeals would be AZApp. A complete citation to an Arizona Supreme Court case would now be Smith v. Jones, 1998 AZ 1, ¶ 1.

From the moment an opinion is issued, all essential citation information would be provided within. Every republication would also include this information, whether found in a slip opinion or republished in an online database, CD-ROM, the Internet or print reporter. The change would apply only to cases issued after January 1, 1998. The old citation system would be kept for old cases.

Despite obstacles, bar volunteers devised a way to implement uniform citation that benefits all users, whether they prefer books or computers. Indeed, the bar wants the Supreme Court to modernize procedures and change the way its official publisher prints the Arizona Reports. First, future cases would be published in the order numbered by our courts. All Supreme Court opinions would be located together before those of the Court of Appeals. Information within cases would be found using each case’s internal paragraph numbers. Second, uniform citation information would be placed on the spines of Arizona Reports. Finding printed cases would be as easy as it is today, except volume and page numbers will give way to year and chronological number.

Arizona will be the first state with a separate official reporter to adopt uniform citation. Because we would also change the format of our official reporter, Arizona would have the simplest citation system in the nation, providing equal access for both electronic and print users.

The State Bar wants Arizona to adopt uniform citation with the least complexity possible. That is why we want our courts to require only the official uniform citation, and not mandate an additional proprietary parallel citation. Indeed, the new edition of the Bluebook has two uniform citation rules, one for documents submitted to uniform citation courts and another for all other legal writing. Under both rules, only uniform citation is required.

The West Group, now a subsidiary of The Thomson Publishing Co. of Canada, strongly opposed uniform citation elsewhere, and is opposed to our proposal making parallel citation optional. West wants to require parallel citation to its Pacific Reporter. West’s rule would apply only to documents filed with Arizona state courts, and not to all other legal documents. Imposing inconsistent citation rules would be wrong.

Mandatory parallel citations will also make legal research more expensive. If a parallel cite were imposed, the information needed to cite to a case would not be available until the Pacific Reporter is published months after all other case law publications are issued. Such a requirement would also limit competition. West requires other publishers to pay a licensing fee for the use of all but the first page of their case citations. These costs continue to be prohibitive to small publishers, and large publishers pass these costs on to practitioners. With uniform citation, practitioners would pay publishers for the value of the product they provide, not for their proprietary citation system. The cost for case law publications adopting uniform citation has been reduced by as much as 50 percent.

Rather than inflict a requirement on users of all other sources of case law, West can meet the citation needs of its Pacific Reporter customers through modifying spine labels and providing conversion tables. Moreover, by law, the Arizona Reports is already provided (through an appropriation to the Supreme Court) to every court of record and every public law library in Arizona. Although published by West, the official Arizona Reports has a statutory and even constitutional foundation; the Pacific Reporter is merely a private product that should not be singled out for unfair and costly preference.

Uniform citation is a sensible change to court rules, designed to decrease practitioners’ costs and increase access to justice. The ingrained, archaic bias against free and inexpensive legal research will end. In the finest traditions of the bench or bar, we think uniform citation as proposed by the State Bar makes sense. We hope you agree.

Nicholas J. Wallwork, shareholder with Muchmore & Wallwork, P.C., is the chair of the Task Force on the Future of the Profession.