Starts with us

We are law librarians advocating for the Bluebook (and other citation systems) to add a framework for citing to Indigenous sources of law.

Background: The 574 tribal governments in this country produce thousands of statutes, regulations, and case law each year that collectively bind millions of Americans. Practitioners, academics, and law students, however, currently receive little guidance from the Bluebook in accurately, consistently, and respectfully describing these resources, with only a handful of tribal governments or sources even mentioned in the Bluebook. Oral Indigenous knowledge, too, receives short shrift, forcing writers to cite it in ways (such as via Rule 17.2.5, Interviews) that fail to convey the weight of the knowledge and the importance of other factors (such as the speaker’s role in the tribe) to that weight.

We are a small group of concerned law librarians who would love to cite to tribal law. We would also like to be able to give effective guidance to patrons, scholars, law students and others on this topic.

Please join our campaign to make legal citation more inclusive and expansive. If this also sounds intriguing to you, please contact us! Email us at cite.tribal.law@gmail.com or keep in touch.