Lynn: I wholeheartedly agree that we need 'virtual' citation,
or citation that does not refer to a particular physical entity,
such as a volume or page, but rather to a unit of legal
information.
Much law citation, especially to substantive arrangements such as
codified law, is already virtual: any citation to a section number
of a state statute is not to the physical volume/page, but to where
that legal information unit falls within a broader substantive
arrangement. All citations to CCH paragraph numbers, to sections
of the Restatement, to parts of Wright & Miller or Corbin on
Contracts are all already virtual citations.
Note that generally, citations to chronological compilations, such
as case reporters or the Federal Register, are physical citations,
and citations to substantive arrangements, such as treatises,
statutes or the Code of Federal Regulations, are virtual. What we
need are virtual citations to chronological compilations.
Case law is most hampered by physical citation. Presently, West
not only provides the physical case arrangement, 'owning' the
physical citation, but also provides substantive access via
headnote numbers embedded in opinions. Shepard's merges these two
together in its citators by referring to the West page (physical
access) and headnote number (substantive access). If opinions were
tagged with some court-provided citation, and judges wrote opinions
with some internal framework that reflected the substance of cases,
this monopoly would be broken and virtual citation could become a
reality.
Jim Hambleton jhamble@class.org
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