Italicize the title of a broadcast series:

Great Minds
California Courts News

Use quotation marks for titles of single broadcasts:

“Unlawful Detainer: Issues and Trends”

Use only two levels of bulleted lists, as they are shown here:

• This is an item in the main list.
• This is an item in a sublist.
• So is this.
• This is an item in the main list.

Verbs, nouns, and pronouns, no matter how short they are, are capitalized in a title or heading.

EXAMPLE:
Tasks to Be Completed by June 30, 2009
What Is It, and Why Is It Important?

Titles of people are generally capped only if they appear in front of the person's name: "President John Smith," but "John Smith, president of the . . ."
Cap nouns such as committee names or other terms only if they are the formal or proprietary name: "Task Force on Court Facilities" but "the task force decided to wait."
Always capitalize "Chief Justice," even when the title is used alone.

Do not cap "judicial branch." Do not cap "court" or "county" unless they are part of an official name.

State
Budget Act of 2003 (Stats. 2003, ch. 157)
See Senate Bill 17 or Assembly Bill 123 (Fiske) . . .
but use SB 17 or AB 123 for subsequent references in text:
AB 123; Stats. 2000, ch. 3
(Sen. Bill 176.)
(Assem. Bill 123.)
(Assem. Bill 123 [Fiske]; Stats. 2000, ch. 3.)
(Assem. Bill 2926; Stats. 1996, ch. 8.)
(Assem. Bill 123 [Speier].)

California Statutes
See Code of Civil Procedure section 3752 et seq. for . . .
(Code Civ. Proc., § 3752 et seq.)
(Code Civ. Proc., §§ 410, 431(a); Pen. Code, §§ 717–718.)
Title 42 United States Code section 2000e(b) . . .
(42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b).) (no comma before section symbol)

Case Law
U.S. Supreme Court: (Gilmore v. United States (1958) 356 U.S. 21.)
U.S. Court of Appeals: (Cannata v. Kentucky Fried Chicken (2d Cir. 1995) 445 F.2d 482.)
California Supreme Court: (People v. Parnell (1995) 5 Cal.3d 469.)
California Court of Appeal: (Lewis v. Clarke (2003) 108 Cal.App.4th 563.)

Legal Journal Articles
Author’s full name, Article Title (date) vol. Journal Title, page.
Eric A. Posner & John C. Yoo, Judicial Independence in International Tribunals (2005) 93 Cal. L.Rev. 1.

California Rules of Court
See rule 3.650 of the California Rules of Court for . . .
According to rule 10.614 (Local court forms), . . .
(Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.1105(a).)

Books
Author’s full name, Title (Publisher, date), page.
or
Institutional author, Title (date), page.
(When the institutional author is also the publisher, identify that institution only as author.)

Electronic Publications and Web Sources
Judicial Council of Cal., Ideals Made Real: The Jury, DVD (Judicial Council of California, 2007), www.courts.ca.gov/juryservice.htm

Journal Articles
Author’s full name, “Article Title” (date) vol.(no.) Journal Title pages.

Reports
Judicial Council of Cal., The Operational Plan for California’s Judicial Branch, 2008–2011, p. 24,
www.courts.ca.gov/documents/2008_operational_plan_text.pdf.

Use the series comma before the last item in a series of more than two items:
EXAMPLE: apples, bananas, and oranges

• the court
• Supreme Court of California
• California Supreme Court
• Courts of Appeal (not Court of Appeals)
• the Court of Appeal
• Court of Appeal, First Appellate District
• First Appellate District of the Court of Appeal
• Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Three (no comma at end)
• Plurals: the Courts of Appeal, the First and Second Appellate Districts

Don’t use: First District Court of Appeal

Do use the following:

Superior Court of California, County of __________ ; or (less formally)
Superior Court of ______(county name)_______ County

Abbreviations for licenses and credentials do not have periods:

CMP, LCSW, AIA

Abbreviations for academic degrees also do not have periods:

BS, JD, LLD, MA, MBA, MDiv, MFCC, MSW, PhD
Dr. David Smith or David Smith, PhD, (commas before and after abbreviation in regular text)

Consult the American Heritage Dictionary for other abbreviations of academic degrees not listed here.

When referring to degrees themselves:

bachelor’s degree, master’s degree but associate degree
juris doctorate (no italics)

Mr. Michael J. Collins
Attorney at Law

• Street = St.
• Avenue = Ave.
• 10th Floor = 10th Flr.

The hyphen (-), the en dash (–), and the em dash (—) have specific uses.

Use en dashes to show ranges of numbers or dates, between fiscal years, and in hyphenated adjectival compounds in which one part of the compound is two words:

• pages 41–57
• fiscal year 2002–2003
• Judicial Council–sponsored guidelines
• New York–style pizza

Use em dashes rather than two hyphens (--) to set off interjections or phrases within a sentence.

SUPREME COURT
Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye/the Chief Justice
Associate Justice Carol A. Corrigan/Justice Corrigan
Frank A. McGuire, Clerk of the Supreme Court

Always capitalize Chief Justice, even when the title is used alone.

The official names of the Supreme Court justices, in order of seniority, are:

1. Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye
2. Kathryn Mickle Werdegar
3. Ming W. Chin
4. Carol A. Corrigan
5. Goodwin H. Liu
6. Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
7. Leondra R. Kruger

COURTS OF APPEAL
Justice (or Presiding Justice) of the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Five
Administrative Presiding Justice Judith McConnell/Administrative Presiding Justice McConnell
Presiding Justice Paul Turner/Presiding Justice Turner
Justice Margaret M. Grignon
Diana Herbert, Clerk/Administrator of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District

SUPERIOR COURTS
Formal, such as in a list or an inside address:

Judge (or Presiding Judge) of the Superior Court of California, County of __________
Commissioner of the Superior Court of California, County of __________
Referee of the Superior Court of California, County of __________

Informal, such as in text:

Presiding Judge Garrett Olney/Presiding Judge Olney
Judge Dennis J. Buckley/Judge Buckley
Judge Felix N. Morris of the Superior Court of Fresno County
Commissioner Terry Adamson/Commissioner Adamson
Mary Jones, Court Executive Officer, Superior Court of California, County of _____ or
Mary Jones, Court Executive Officer, Superior Court of _____County

RETIRED AND TEMPORARY JUSTICES AND JUDGES
Retired justices and judges retain the title they had at the court from which they retired:

Justice Elwood P. Lui (Ret.)
Hon. Elwood P. Lui (Ret.) (inside address of letter)

For temporary judges, use:

Hon. Hampton Smith, Temporary Judge
not Hon. Hampton Smith, Judge pro Tem

In regular text, spell out numbers nine and under and use numerals for 10 and above.

But when your text has mixed numbers that are in both categories and those numbers refer to similar items in the same discussion, use numerals for both. This helps make comparisons clearer.

During the past six months, 3 courts were added to the pilot program and additional funding was secured for the 10 pilot projects already under way.

When a number begins the sentence, use the word rather than the numeral, even if the number is large:
Twenty-two precincts have reported, and the new voting machines seem to be working well.

Use commas in numbers over 999 (e.g., 1,000, not 1000).

Use numerals with the words million and billion: 2.5 million, 10 billion.

Ranges of numbers should be closed up on either side of the en dash, with no spaces, for example:
pages 134–135
§§ 75–76
fiscal year 2008–2009

Ordinal Numbers
For ordinal numbers, do not use superscript with the “th” or “st.”
10th row
21st century

Do not use “th” in dates. For example, change “the 18th of July” or “July 18th” to “July 18.”

• Website not Web site
• E-mail not email
• URL not url
• Online not on-line or on line

11 a.m., not 11:00 a.m. BUT be consistent, and give all times in full if a fraction of an hour (such as “:30”) is used anywhere in the document:

• from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• 8:45–11:00 a.m.
• 3–5 p.m.
• 12 noon or 12 p.m.

When shortening a term used in a document, use the complete term at the first occurrence followed by the shortened term or abbreviation in parentheses.

Do not italicize these titles. Enclose workshop and course titles in quotation marks when referring to them in text. For example:

You are invited to attend “Court Strategic Plans: How Do We Get There?”