Robert A. James (Pillsbury, San Francisco), The Bluebook Nods, 24 Green Bag 2d 335 (2021):
Generations of law students have been required to master A Uniform System of Citation, also known as the Bluebook, to pass legal writing classes or progress in coveted law review positions. A long-time practitioner compares the 2021 and 1976 versions of the manual and offers two sets of comments. First, no one should expect perfect compliance with the Bluebook inasmuch as the Bluebook itself occasionally falls short of its aspirations and ideals. Second, a blanket rule that a mathematical formula should be italicized in its entirety reveals ignorance and disrespect for the substantive content of scientific typography. The author concludes that any system of citation should honor the distinctive features of each cultural community to which reference is made—whether linguistic, musical, or technical. …
In any work with serious application of mathematics to legal issues, though, the Bluebook should defer to the standards of the relevant discipline. The formula option in word processing applications automatically applies the above italic and roman rules, and can be used to notate vectors; at a minimum, articles certainly should not disturb what these programs produce. If this means that law review editors lacking mathematical numeracy must defer to other experts or (horrors) to the authors who have such skills, so be it. They and we should not simply italicize an entire formula to appear vaguely scientific.
More broadly, we should not be dilettantes. If you are going to provide a citation from a cultural community, whether scientific, linguistic, or musical, then you should observe the norms of that community. Baseball has embraced the concept of Ponle Acento, finally including accent marks on uniforms and other player references. The law should be no less respectful of other cultures.
