 Hi, this is Charlotte Doherty from the Gallagher Law Library with a presentation about how to cite unpublished cases. Sometimes, when you're researching a legal question, you'll come across a case in Lexis or Westlaw that has a funny-looking citation or a note that the case is unpublished or unreported. The terms unpublished or unreported are frequently used interchangeably to make things more confusing. Should you use these cases or cite to them? This lesson shows you when and how. Let's look at our first example. This case is so new that it has not yet been included or published in a bound reporter. Westlaw notes that only the Westlaw citation is currently available and it lists the unique database identifier number here. In this case, you can use the case in your brief and if you do, you must cite to it. So let's turn to a different sort of case. The citation notes that this case is unpublished or that it has not been reported. You may not cite to this case except under Washington General Court Rule 14.1. And we will take a look at that court rule next. This is Washington General Court Rule 14.1 about citing to unpublished opinions. You can find this rule as I did by googling it or you might want to get familiar with this website which gives you Washington court rules. You'll notice in this rule that it says that unpublished opinions have no presidential value and are not binding on any court. However, if they were published on or after March 1, 2013, they may be cited as non-binding authorities. If you identify them as such and the court will determine how much persuasive value it gives to the case. Note that you can also cite unpublished authority from other jurisdictions. However, you may do so only if citation is permitted under the law of the jurisdiction of that issuing court. So in that case, you'll go to that state's court rules and take a look at whether they allow citing to unpublished opinions. So really, there are two rules you need to be mindful of. The first is Washington General Court Rule 14.1, which we just looked at. And then there are the Blue Book Rules, B10.1.4 for practitioners and the White Page Rule 10.8.1 for academic papers and to supplement the Blue Page Rules. Turning to the Blue Book, we'll look at how to find rules about unpublished cases. I like to do one of two things. Usually I go to the index, but you can also look in the table of contents. You'll notice the table of contents lays out all the rules and starts with the blue pages for practitioners. Here we're looking for unpublished cases. So we're going to look at practitioner rule 10, pending and unreported cases. This should be used when you are writing for the court in briefs or memos. However, you can use the White Page Rules for academic writings and also to supplement or provide additional information if you have questions after reading the Blue Page Rules. So they are supplemental. They are with cases and we can see that 10.8 is called special citation forms. 10.8.1 is pending and unreported cases. I really prefer to go to the index and here I'm going to look under unpublished or unreported. See what I can find about cases under you here. Unpublished materials, unreported cases. Rule 10.1 is the basic rule. Rule 10.8.1 is the specific rule. I'm going to go right there. So here we see rule 10.8.1 pending and unreported cases. And this will just give you a few more examples to supplement the Blue Page Rules when a case is unreported but is available in an electronic database as we saw in our first example. You may be cited to that database. You'll just provide the case name, the docket number, the database identifier, and this gives you some nice examples. Lexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg, Versus Law, Lois Law. Cite to the case docket number exactly as it appears and remember to include any other database codes or numbers that uniquely identify the case. Screen or page numbers if the database assigns them should be preceded by an asterisk. Paragraph numbers if assigned should be preceded by a paragraph symbol. That is all there is to it. For other Blue Book citation guidance, please consult the Gallagher Law Library's Blue Book 101 Research Guide.