CiteGenie™
Automagically copy text with correct citations from Westlaw, Lexis, and other websites.*
"We cannot impress too strongly upon counsel in all cases the importance to us of correct citations." Hughes v. Wyatt, 125 N.W. 334, 336 (Iowa 1910).
Last Update: 2008/04/09

Capabilities

Things CiteGenie does not do

Capabilities

Doesn't Westlaw already do this for you?

No. Westlaw has a feature that provides some rudamentary citing functions, but it doesn't put the cite in the clipboard for you, it requires multiple steps, and it doesn't handle citations for footnotes and many other features of CiteGenie. CiteGenie will give you a correctly formatted Bluebook-standard citation much more reliabily that Westlaw. In addition, the configuration options of CiteGenie allow you to customize citations to the format proper for your court, such as "California Style" citations with the date parenthetical at the beginning of the citation.
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What if the quote spans multiple pages?

CiteGenie handles multi-page quotes and will give the correct pinpoint pages using standard notion.
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What if the quote is in a footnote?

CiteGenie handles footnotes and will give the correct pinpoint page and footnote using standard notion.
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Wow. Is it perfect?

Alas, nothing done by a computer is going to be perfect. CiteGenie is good, and in our testing provides correct citations in almost all cases. However, there are some situations where it does stumble. Of course, humans don't always get citations right either. I read a lot of briefs, and in my experience, CiteGenie is better than a lot of humans. It is an automated tool, and with any automated tool, you need to apply your own expertiese to your use of it.
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Can it add the quote marks around the quoted text?

Yes, that is a configurable option.
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Can it convert double-quote marks inside the text to single quotes?

Yes, that is a configurable option.
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Can it automatically italicize the case name?

Yes, in most cases. However, because the text is coming from an HTML source, only sources that understand pasting of rich text from an HTML source will accept the pasted text with formatting. Microsoft Word does this. Wordperfect does not, without some help. To get formatting when pasting into Wordperfect, you have to enable GenieMacro on the "Advanced Options" tab in the CiteGenie configuration screen.
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Does it copy text with original formatting?

If the original document had some text bold, underlined, or italicized, that formatting will usually carry over when you paste from CiteGenie, as long as the program you are pasting into accepts HTML formatting codes. Microsoft Word does. Wordperfect does not, without some help. To get formatting when pasting into Wordperfect, you have to enable GenieMacro on the "Advanced Options" tab in the CiteGenie configuration screen.
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Can it do special citation formats that my state court requires?

In many cases, yes. Most states court citations are handled by the default formatting. CiteGenie is configurable and canproduce citations formatted for the specific rules in several states, such as putting the parenthetical date up front and indicating the appellate disctrict or region for decsions from the state's appellate courts.
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Things CiteGenie does not do

Short form subsequent cites.

CiteGenie does not know if the case you are quoting from has already been cited earlier in your brief and could be cited with a shorter form.
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Change case of first letter

CiteGenie does not know if you will paste the quotation at the beginning of a sentance or not, so it is unable to know if the first letter of the quotation should be converted to uppercase or lowercase.
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Writ history

Some state courts (such as Texas) have rules for briefs submitted in that state, which require special citation forms for that state's court cases. These sometimes require writ history and additional information in the court name. CiteGenie cannot do the writ history, since the writ history is not part of the opinion in Westlaw (and thus is is not in your browser's memory that CiteGenie can query).
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Author names

CiteGenie can not identify the author's name for law journal publications in Westlaw or Lexis.
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For some old state caselaw, Westlaw does not list the state reporter first, and currently CiteGenie will not detect the older reporters as state-specific reporters. See, e.g., 3 Metcalf 332. We hope to improve this in the future.

CiteGenie also can not reliably identify some state court names, when Westlaw does not identify the court name in the heading. See, e.g., 20 Wend. 223. We also hope to improve this in the future.
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* Westlaw, Lexis, and other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.  They are used here only to denote the identity of services with which CiteGenie is designed to operate and do not indicate any endorsement or approval by those services.