Death by Citation Check

Based on my experience in my legal editing class, the law review workload might kill me. Since the legal profession has a mania for citing to precedent, the main duty of law review apprentices is double-checking the footnotes of papers submitted for publication. Besides going to the author's sources to verify the content, that means ensuring that the citations are in proper format. "Proper format" means in compliance with 150 pages of rules like

When citing an entire decision, and not a pinpoint therein, in short form, you must include the shorter version of the case name, the volume number, reporter designation, and first page; but do NOT include a jurisdiction/date parenthetical.

Let me make clear that when I say 150 pages of rules, I am excluding the 190 pages of tables and appendices in the citation rulebook. I spent the better part of my day grinding through the first six pages of a twenty-two page cite-check assignment.