How to cite a legal case in ASA
A court decision or legal judgment. American Sociological Association.
Quick answer
To cite a legal case in ASA, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Author, A.. 1954. "Brown v. Board of Education." 347 U.S. 483.
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for ASA. For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
What you need
For a legal case, ASA expects these fields at minimum:
- Case name
- Year
- Reporter volume and page
- Court
- Jurisdiction
Common mistakes
- Mixing bibliography formatting with in-text citation rules. Reference-list entries and in-text cites follow different patterns — use the style's official guide for both.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
- Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.
Cite every reference in ASA — at once
Upload your .docx and DEEPNOTIS re-formats every citation in ASA, automatically. Free up to 5 documents.
Last updated: 5 May 2026