Skip to Main Content

Law

Guide to research sources for Canadian and BC law.

"McGill" Style

McGill Style

The standard legal citation format in Canada is the "McGill style".

The official manual is the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (10th ed.), but most people call it the "McGill Guide" because the editors of the McGill Law Journal created the style, and continue to keep it updated.

This guide is available for in-library use at every campus library. It is not available online at KPU.

Call number: REF KE 259 C35 2023

Quick tips for citing cases:

Neutral citation

  • If there is a neutral citation, that is all you need to include. Almost all Canadian cases published in the past 25 years have a neutral citation.
    • e.g. Mustapha v Culligan, 2008 SCC 27.

No neutral citation (on CanLII)

  • If there is no neutral citation, but there is a CanLII citation, list only the CanLII citation. CanLII itself uses neutral citations, so you will likely only have to do this for older cases.
    • e.g. Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 1993 CanLII 75 SCC. 

No neutral citation (not on CanLII)

  • If there is no neutral or CanLII citation, provide two alternative (parallel) citations. 
  • Also provide a parallel citation if the case on CanLII does not provide paragraph numbers, and you need to make a pinpoint reference.
  • Preference is given to sources what are readily available, and which provide paragraph numbers for pinpoint references. If the court which heard the case is not obvious from the citation, add the abbreviation for the court at the end of the citation. 
    • e.g. R v Kripps Pharmacy Ltd (1981), 119 DLR (3d) 569, 26 BCLR 15 (SC).

For more info, please see the KPU Library's 2-page guide, or check out other libraries' guides to legal citation.

A new Canadian legal citation style guide was created by a team of Canadian law librarians in 2024 to provide a free, open-access alternative to the McGill guide. It includes guidance on citing AI-generated content which is not covered in the McGill guide. It is hosted on CanLII. The McGill guide is still the most commonly-used format in Canadian courts and legal writing.

See:

These guides provide examples of "McGill style" legal citations:

Practice: Legal Citation with the McGill Guide

At-a-glance Legal Citations

Reading a case citation: Neutral cite: 2012 SCC 53 means that this is the 53rd decision released by the Supreme Court of Canda (SCC) in 2012

Legal case from a SERIES reporter, without a neutral citation:

Legal case from an ANNUAL reporter, without a neutral citation:

VIDEO: Citing a Case without a Neutral Citation (5:58)

Shows how to properly format citation for a case found in CanLII which does not have a neutral citation. Includes example where the date the decision was published is different from the date the decision was released by the court. Based on older edition of McGill guide, but still accurate.

Here are some common law report abbreviations:

To de-code other citation abbreviations, check this source:

VIDEO: Citing Canadian Statutes (5:40)

Very clear video from Douglas College Library on citing both federal and BC statutes using the McGill style. Mentions Quicklaw database which is not available at KPU.

statute citation example

undefined

Legal Citations in Other Styles

Citing legal information in APA Style

Chapter 11 in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2020, 7th edition) addresses legal references.

"In APA Style, most legal materials are cited in the standard legal citation style used for legal references across all disciplines ... Existing legal references are usually already written in legal style and require few, if any, changes for an APA Style reference list entry" (APA, 2020, p. 355).

The APA manual only provides examples for American legal sources, and a few international sources, based on the standard US legal citation format called the Bluebook. The APA recommends that you cite legal sources using the standard legal citation format of your country. In Canada, that is the McGill style.

In practice, at KPU, if you have been asked to cite legal sources in APA style, your instructor probably wants you to:

  • use the standard APA style to cite secondary legal materials such as journal articles and books. 
  • use the "McGill-style" citation format to cite primary legal materials, i.e. case law and legislation.

However, the only way to know for sure is to ASK YOUR INSTRUCTOR what they prefer.

In-text citations

The purpose of an in-text citation is to direct your reader to the correct place in the References list to locate the full reference for the source you've used. So you need to create your reference first, and then construct the in-text citation from that reference. 

"Most [primary] legal reference entries begin with the title of the work; as a result, most in-text citations consist of the title and year. ... If the title is long ... shorten it for the in-text citation, but give enough information in the in-text citation to enable readers to locate the entry in the reference list" (APA, 2020, p. 357).

Example of in-text citation to a case:

  • within a sentence: Lessard v Schmidt (1972) 

  • at the end of a sentence: (Lessard v Schmidt, 1972)

Legal citations in Chicago style

In a nutshell, if you have been asked to cite legal sources in APA style, your instructor probably wants you to:

  • use the standard Chicago style to cite secondary legal materials such as journal articles and books. 
  • use the "McGill-style" citation format to cite primary legal materials, i.e. case law and legislation.

From the Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed., ):

"The major reference work for citing Canadian public documents and legal cases in a Canadian context is the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation [commonly called the McGill Guide]" (section 14.305). See the box above for info on the McGill style.