How to Cite Court Cases in MLA: Format, Examples and In-Text Citations

Last reviewed: October 5, 2026. This article is general information, not legal advice. Citation rules come from your style guide, so if your instructor or publisher gives different instructions, follow theirs.

If you're writing a paper for a history, English or political science class and need to cite a court decision, MLA can feel awkward, because court opinions don't look like books or articles. The good news is that MLA handles them with the same template it uses for everything else. This guide shows you how to cite court cases in MLA, with examples you can copy.

Short answer: In MLA 9, name the court as the author (largest government unit first), then give the case name in italics, the date of the decision, and where you read it (website or reporter, publisher and URL). For example: United States, Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education. 17 May 1954. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483. Your in-text citation points to the first part of that entry.

The MLA format for a court case

MLA 9 builds every entry from the same "core elements". For a court case, they work out like this:

1. Author: the court, written from the largest government unit to the smallest, for example United States, Supreme Court. or United States, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
2. Title: the case name in italics, with a lowercase "v." between the parties: Marbury v. Madison.
3. Date: the day the decision was issued, written day month year (17 May 1954).
4. Container: where you read the opinion, such as a website (Legal Information Institute), a court's own site, a database, or the printed United States Reports.
5. Publisher and location: the site's publisher if it differs from the site's name, then the URL (without "https://"), or the volume and page numbers for a print reporter.

You can add an access date at the end if your instructor wants one, for example "Accessed 5 Oct. 2026."

Worked examples

A U.S. Supreme Court case read online

This is MLA's own example:

United States, Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education. 17 May 1954. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483.

A library guide built on the 9th edition uses the same pattern for a newer case:

United States, Supreme Court. Obergefell v. Hodges. 26 June 2015. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-556. Accessed 12 May 2022.

A Supreme Court case from the printed reporter

If you used the official United States Reports (for example, a scan on the Library of Congress website), treat the reporter as the first container and the website as the second. MLA's example:

United States, Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education. United States Reports, vol. 347, 17 May 1954, pp. 483-97. Library of Congress, tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep347/usrep347483/usrep347483.pdf.

A lower federal court case

MLA's example for a federal appeals court includes the docket number:

United States, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Moss v. Colvin. Docket no. 15-2272, 9 Jan. 2017. United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions.html.

For a state court, follow the same order: the state, then the court (for example, "California, Supreme Court."), then the case name, date and source.

A dissenting opinion

If you're quoting a dissent, the justice can be treated as the author:

Alito, Samuel. Dissenting opinion. Obergefell v. Hodges. 26 June 2015. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-556.

In-text citations

Your in-text citation should lead readers to the right entry in your works-cited list, so it usually begins with the first element of that entry:

• Parenthetical: The Court rejected "separate but equal" in public education (United States, Supreme Court).
• Naming the case in your sentence: In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court held that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.
• Several cases from the same court: add a short form of the case name so readers can tell your entries apart, for example (United States, Supreme Court, Brown).

MLA also says that after you introduce a case in full, you can shorten it to the first-listed nongovernmental party. So NLRB v. Yeshiva University becomes Yeshiva, and Brown v. Board of Education becomes Brown. Court opinions online usually don't have stable page numbers, so leave the page out unless you used a paginated version such as United States Reports.

How Bluebook citations differ

Law students, lawyers and courts use The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, not MLA. A Bluebook case citation is much more compact: the case name, the reporter volume, the reporter abbreviation, the first page, and a parenthetical with the court (when needed) and the year. Two examples from the University of Texas law library's guide:

• Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950). A Supreme Court case needs only the year in the parenthetical.
• Edgewater Foundation v. Thompson, 350 F.3d 694 (7th Cir. 2003). A lower court case adds the court.

The main differences:

• Bluebook doesn't list the court as an "author" and usually has no URL.
• It relies on reporter abbreviations such as "U.S." and "F.3d", and often abbreviates words in case names.
• It uses short forms such as "Id." in footnotes.

If your readers know legal citation, MLA describes a hybrid method that swaps MLA's author and title elements for the Bluebook citation:

Brown v. Board of Education. 347 U.S. 483. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Forgetting italics on the case name, or capitalising "V." It's always a lowercase "v."
• Using the filing or argument date instead of the decision date.
• Citing a summary site when you read the opinion somewhere else. Cite where you actually read it.
• Mixing styles. Don't drop a bare Bluebook citation into an MLA paper unless you're deliberately using the hybrid method.
• Ignoring your instructor. Some teachers prefer a simplified entry. Their instructions win.

If you're writing about the Constitution itself, our guide to which article makes the Constitution the highest law explains the Supremacy Clause, which comes up in many landmark cases.

Sources

• MLA Style Center, "Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style": style.mla.org
• Lake-Sumter State College Library, "How do you cite legal documents like laws or court opinions in MLA Style?": lssc.libanswers.com
• Iowa Western Community College Library, MLA guide, "Other Sources": iwcc.libguides.com
• Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas, "Bluebook Legal Citation: Cases": tarlton.law.utexas.edu
• Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954): Cornell LII