Free tool
Free Citation Format Checker
Paste a brief, motion or memo to find every case, statute and rule citation, flag common Bluebook format problems with a suggested fix, and preview a Table of Authorities. No sign-up.
Runs in your browser. No AI, and nothing leaves your device. The checks are conservative, rule-based heuristics drawn from Bluebook conventions. They read the format of a citation only: they don’t confirm that a case exists, that a pin cite is right, or that the law is still good.
Check your citations
Method
What it checks
- A full case citation needs a parenthetical with the year (and court, unless it is the U.S. Supreme Court).
- Federal reporter citations (F., F. Supp., F. App'x, B.R.) need the deciding court in the parenthetical.
- Reporter, code and rule abbreviations must use Bluebook spacing and punctuation (F. Supp. 2d, S. Ct., U.S.C.).
- Case names use "v.", not "vs." or "versus".
- When the sentence quotes a case, the citation should give the page the quotation appears on.
- Put a space between the section symbol and the number (§ 1331, §§ 1983, 1988).
- Code and regulation citations put a section symbol before the section (28 U.S.C. § 1331).
- "Id." refers to the immediately preceding citation, so it cannot be the first citation.
What it doesn’t do
- It doesn’t confirm that a case exists, that the volume and page are right, or that the case is still good law. Use a citator for that.
- It doesn’t check case-name abbreviations, signals, italics, subsequent history, parentheticals or the order of authorities.
- It doesn’t apply local citation rules or state style manuals, which can differ from the Bluebook.
- It doesn’t use AI and doesn’t send your text anywhere, so it can’t look anything up.
In DraftAria
Citation Check, inside your filing workflow
Signed in, DraftAria’s Citation Check runs the same format checks with one-click fixes, exports the Table of Authorities, and can look case citations up in CourtListener to confirm they exist. A match means the case exists, not that it is good law.
Answers from Ask Aria and Agents can go straight to Citation Check, so you can check every authority before relying on it. See the full product overview.
More free tools and reading:
- Federal court deadline calculator: count FRCP 6(a) periods step by step.
- Filing time savings calculator: estimate formatting and rules-check time.
- Federal filing guides: required parts, deadlines and length limits.
- Resources: articles on court rules and filing.
FAQ
Questions about the citation checker
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The checker runs entirely in your browser. Text you paste and files you upload are read on your device; nothing is sent to DraftAria, to an AI model or to any other service, and nothing is saved when you leave the page.
Does it use AI?
No. It is a rule-based parser and a fixed set of format checks. The same results come back every time for the same text.
Does it tell me whether a case exists or is still good law?
No. The free checker only reads the format of the citations in your text. It does not look cases up, so it cannot tell you that a case exists, that a pin cite is right, or that a case has not been overruled. Inside DraftAria, Citation Check can also look case citations up in CourtListener; "found" there means the case exists, not that it is good law. Always confirm authority in a citator before you file.
Which citation format does it follow?
The checks follow common Bluebook conventions for court documents: "v." between party names, Bluebook spacing and punctuation for reporters, codes and court rules (for example F. Supp. 2d, S. Ct., U.S.C., Fed. R. Civ. P.), a court-and-year parenthetical on full case citations, a space after the section symbol, and a pin cite when a sentence quotes a case. Local citation rules and state style manuals can differ, so check your court's rules too.
Which reporters does it recognize?
The U.S. Supreme Court reporters (U.S., S. Ct., L. Ed.), the federal reporters (F., F.2d, F.3d, F.4th, F. Supp. series, F. App'x, F.R.D., B.R., Fed. Cl.), the regional reporters (A., N.E., N.W., P., S.E., So., S.W. series), the main California and New York reporters, and Westlaw (WL) citations. It also finds U.S.C. and C.F.R. sections, Federal Register cites, federal court rules and constitutional provisions.
How is the Table of Authorities numbered?
By paragraph for pasted text and Word files. For a PDF, page breaks are kept, so the table lists page numbers. Short forms such as "Id." and "Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556" are counted under the full citation they refer to. Check the numbers against your final pagination before filing.
How much text can I check?
Up to 200,000 characters at a time, about the length of a long brief. Longer text is cut off at that point and the page tells you so. You can upload a .txt, Word (.docx) or PDF file with selectable text; scanned PDFs need OCR first.
Why didn't it flag a citation I know is wrong?
The checks are deliberately conservative: each one flags only a clear format problem, to avoid false alarms. It does not check case-name abbreviations, signals, italics, subsequent history or the order of authorities, and it may miss a citation written in an unusual form. Treat a clean result as "no obvious format problems", not as a cite-check.
Check citations where you draft.
DraftAria adds CourtListener lookup, court-formatted templates and filing checks to the same Citation Check. Start a 14-day free trial, or book a demo.