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Law Journals: Source Pulling and Cite-Checking Resources for Staff Members

Regulations

Follow Bluebook Rule 14 for citation.

Federal Regulations are found in two publications. Regulations (also called rules) are published first in the Federal Register (FR or Fed. Reg.) as a proposed rule, then again as a final rule.  The Federal Register is published every federal working day, and the page numbers quickly climb into the thousands - if you see a page number that appears to be 51,356, it is probably not a typo. A final rule is then reprinted in the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.), which is published annually, and contains the text of in-force federal regulations. 

  • CFR. Generally, if a regulation is printed in the CFR, cite to that source. You can locate PDFs of the CFR at govinfo.gov or HeinOnline. Keep in mind that ecfr.gov is an unofficial version. You will need the volume number and the part or section number. 
  • Federal Register. If the citation purposefully refers to a proposed or final rule in the Federal Register you can locate PDFs at federalregister.gov (back to 1994), on govinfo.gov (back to the first volume), or on HeinOnline (back to the first volume). You will need the date and either the page number or rule name.

State Regulations: Vary state by state.  Best tip is to search for a research guide on regulations in that jurisdiction (i.e., Google "state regulation" North Dakota legal research guide, etc.) and you can usually find an expert on that jurisdiction to help you.