Article by Holly Olarczuk-Smith, Esq.
Over the summer, the Ohio Supreme Court updated its writing manual to streamline and simplify citation formats. The writing manual, which is widely used as the standard for drafting motions and briefs in Ohio, is in its third edition and it took effect on June 17, 2024.
The updated manual’s prefaces states, “The Supreme Court of Ohio Writing Manual is a comprehensive guide to judicial-opinion writing published by the court. This third edition of the Writing Manual includes various revisions and updates designed to improve the readability of opinions issued by, and briefs filed in, the Supreme Court of Ohio and Ohio’s Courts of Appeals.” The Ohio Supreme Court “strongly recommends” that Ohio courts and lawyers follow its writing manual.
Significantly, the 2024 edition abandons the old, lengthy parallel citation format in favor of a modern, simpler citation to the Ohio WebCite ( -Ohio- ). For example, the new citation form to the Ohio Supreme Court appears much more concise – Smith v. Jones, 2024-Ohio-1234, ¶ 7.
Other meaningful changes include:
- Eliminating the county location and case number for citations to the Ohio Courts of Appeals and placing the district in parentheses – Smith v. Jones, 2003-Ohio-5994, ¶ 6 (10th Dist.).
- Eliminating the citation to multiple reporters for citations to the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of a single citation to the U.S. Reporters – Smith v. Jones, 123 U.S. 456, 981 (2024).
- Eliminating the section symbol for citation to the U.S. Code and Ohio Revised Code.
- Using ellipses (. . .) instead of asterisks (* * *) for omissions in quotations.
- Favoring the use of “emphasis in the original” instead of the Latin phrase “emphasis sic.”
- Approval of and guidance for using the “cleaned up” parenthetical phrase.
To provide Ohio lawyers and courts with an easy-to-understand, comprehensive overview of Ohio’s new citation rules, the writing manual contains a “Citations at a Glance” reference page at the very beginning of the manual. For easy use, the “Citations at a Glance” reference page contains a hyperlink to other parts of the writing manual that explains the citation format in more detail.
It is worthwhile for Ohio lawyers to take a closer look at the 2024 writing manual because Ohio Supreme Court Practice Rule 3.01 refers Ohio lawyers to the manual “for guidance on the style of documents” filed in Ohio courts.
The 2024 version of the Supreme Court of Ohio Writing Manual is available here.