The Bluebook is a style guide created for law students, lawyers, judges and legal professionals. This style guide provides a systematic and uniform method for all individuals in the legal profession to cite and reference cases and legal sources of authority. Although the Bluebook can be intimidating, it is easiest to think in four parts:
The Bluepages: The Bluepages are located at the beginning of the book. In this section, you can find a quick summary on different forms of legal citations, ranging from case citations to court and litigation documents. The Bluepages also have basic citation examples for each form of legal citation. At the end of the Bluepages is a section titled "Bluepages Tables". The tables have commonly used abbreviations for words that are used in legal documents and specifies words that should not be abbreviated.
Rules: The Rules cover structure and use of citations, and can be found right after the Bluepages.
Tables: There are 16 tables, all which are referenced throughout the Rules.
Index: The Bluebook index functions just like any other index. It is an alphabetical list of names and terms referenced throughout the book with a corresponding page number. Note: the index is your best friend!