California Style Manual citation checker
Paste a citation that is already in California Style Manual form and check it against the California Style Manual (4th ed.) — free, and without signing in.
10 free citations every month — no login required.
Press Ctrl/⌘ + Enter to convert. Output is California Style Manual, 4th ed.
Pasted text is processed transiently and never stored.
Paste a citation already in CSM form to check it against the California Style Manual (4th ed.), with a before-and-after list of any corrections.
About this tool
The California Style Manual (4th ed.) is the citation style used in California's Official Reports. Its rules govern small but consequential details — the year's position, the reporter abbreviation, pinpoint page form, and how a court is identified in the parenthetical. This checker compares your citation against those rules.
Paste a citation and the checker returns one of three answers: it already conforms, it needs corrections, or it cannot be checked with confidence. When it finds corrections it shows a before-and-after list keyed to the governing CSM section, so you can see exactly what changed and why, then copy the corrected citation into Word.
When the input is too ambiguous to check safely, the checker refuses and says so rather than inventing a correction — for example, it will not fill in a court or reporter it would have to guess. California Rules of Court, rule 1.200 permits either CSM or Bluebook style applied consistently, so this tool checks CSM conformance; it does not decide which style your court requires.
This is a formatting aid, not a research service, and it does not tell you whether a case is still good law. Always verify each citation against the official reporter before you file.