List of Legal Abbreviations

List Of Legal Abbreviations

It is common practice in legal documents to cite to other publications by using standard abbreviations for the title of each source. Abbreviations may also be found for common words or legal phrases. Such citations and abbreviations are found in court decisions, statutes, regulations, journal articles, books, and other documents. Below is a basic list of very common abbreviations. Because publishers adopt different practices regarding how abbreviations are printed, one may find abbreviations with or without periods for each letter. For example, the Code of Federal Regulations may appear abbreviated as "C.F.R." or just as "CFR."

For abbreviations not found in this list, here are alternate websites to search:

• Abbreviations and Acronyms of the U.S. Government (maintained by IUPUI)
• The Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations (maintained by Cardiff University).

For legal abbreviations not found online, try searching one of the following print sources. These publications are regularly found at law and other libraries.

• Garner, Brian. Black's Law Dictionary. 9th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Pub. Co., 2009.
• Harvard Law School. "The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation". 18th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Law Review Association, 2005.
• McGill Law Journal. Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation. 6th ed. Toronto: Carswell, 2006.
• Prince, Mary Miles. Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations. 6th ed. Buffalo, NY: Hein, 2009.
• Trinxet, Salvador. Template:Trinxet Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations and Acronyms Series. A Law Reference Collection, 2011, ISBN: 1624680003 and 978-1-62468-000-7
• Trinxet, Salvador. Trinxet Reverse Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations and Acronyms, 2011,

ISBN: 1624680011 and 978-1-62468-001-4.

• Raistrick, Donald. Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations. 3rd ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2008. This book focuses more on British and other foreign/international abbreviations.
• Kavass, World Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations

List Of Common Legal Abbreviations Or Terms