Cite Commons Citation Checker
An AI companion for checking citations and reinforcing citation skills — because legal citation belongs to all of us, not one book.
- Paste your citations into the text box — one citation per line, or multiple in a paragraph. Cite Commons will detect and analyze each one individually.
- Choose which guide(s) to check against using the Check buttons: select a single guide (Bluebook, Indigo, ALWD, UCG, or LII) or run all five at once with All 5.
- Select a mode — Detailed provides rule citations, explanations, and corrected forms; Quick gives a fast pass/fail with the primary rule reference only.
- Click Check Citations to submit. The AI will analyze each citation and return a status (✓ Correct, ⚠ Review, or ✕ Error Found) for each applicable guide.
- Review results by expanding each citation card. Switch between guide tabs to compare how the same citation is treated across different standards. A comparison table appears at the bottom when checking all guides.
- Corrected forms are shown in a highlighted box when errors are detected — copy these directly into your document.
- Sample citations are available below the guide selector to help you explore the tool's capabilities.
Cite Commons is an AI-assisted learning and drafting aid — not a substitute for consulting the authoritative guide directly. Citation rules change across editions, jurisdictions, and document types. Always verify important citations against the primary source. Results may contain errors; treat them as a starting point for review, not a final answer.
If you're representing yourself in court (pro se), proper citations help judges and clerks find the authorities you're relying on. Use the Bluebook or ALWD guides for federal courts. State courts often have their own rules — check your court's local rules first. Cite Commons can check citations for any of these guides. When in doubt, the most important thing is that your citation gives the reader enough information to find the source: case name, volume, reporter, page number, and year for cases; title, code abbreviation, section, and year for statutes.
Cite Commons can verify whether federal case citations actually exist by querying the CourtListener database (Free Law Project). This requires a free API token. Here's how to get one:
- Go to courtlistener.com/sign-in and create a free account (or log in).
- Click your username in the top-right corner, then select Profile.
- Scroll down to the API Token section — your token is shown there.
- Copy the token and paste it into the field below, then click Save.
The token is stored only in your browser's session memory and never sent anywhere except CourtListener.
Without a token: AI existence assessment + Caselaw Access Project lookup for state cases (free, no token needed).
With a token: AI assessment + live CourtListener lookup (federal & recent state) + CAP (deep historical state).
About Caselaw Access Project (CAP): The Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School) has digitized over 40 million U.S. state court decisions from 1658 to approximately 2018–2021. Coverage completeness varies by state and ends when Harvard finished scanning that state's print reporters — cases decided after that cutoff will not appear in CAP even if they exist. For recent state cases (roughly 2020 and later), a "not found" result from CAP does not indicate the case is fictitious; verify against the court's official website or a commercial service.
Optional: Use your own Anthropic API key. By default Cite Commons uses a shared key provided by the site. If you have your own Anthropic API key, you can use it instead — your checks will run on your own quota and the shared key won't be used. Your key is stored only in this browser session and never logged.
Get a free key at console.anthropic.com. Usage is billed to your account at Anthropic's standard rates.