Legal Abbreviations

Legal abbreviations are used more often than you can imagine. There are so many common abbreviations that have a legal connotation that are used each and every day. It is important that you know what many of these abbreviations mean, particularly if you work with legal documents. Abbreviations of a legal context are commonly found in anything from a book to court documents.

Having a general knowledge of the different abbreviations can be very helpful for anyone that is looking to understand some very common words and phrases a bit better. You will be surprised at how many very common abbreviations are actually legal-based.

Why Are Abbreviations Used?

There are a number of reasons why legal abbreviations are used. One of the main reasons is for simplicity. It can become very wordy and quite verbose to use the complete spelling of very common words.

Most legal documents contain a lot of information. It can be cumbersome enough reading through legalese without having to deal with the additional problems of verbosity and repetition. To avoid this problem, there a number of very common abbreviations that is used in legal documents and in other forms of writing and correspondence.

Also, there are times when the abbreviations are more effective in presenting information or informing people about a product or service. Such is the case with the copyright symbol or abbreviation ©. This particular symbol easily lets others know that the particular words or phrase or product is protected by a copyright. Rather than write this information so that others are aware, the abbreviation or symbol sufficiently and efficiently provides all the necessary information.

Also, when transcribing documents, particularly legal documents, the use of abbreviations makes the process a bit easier and uniform. Having a common set of abbreviations is very important as it allows everyone reading a document to understand what is being presented in writing without having to spell out terms that are frequently utilized.

Identifying Legal Abbreviations

Many very common abbreviations which are used quite frequently have legal origins. Then there are other abbreviations that are usually only identifiable by those that work within a legal environment on a regular basis. Fortunately, there are resources available to help people determine the meaning of different abbreviations.

Some of these resources include Abbreviation and Acronyms of the U.S. Government which is also called GovSpeak. This is a very extensive database of abbreviations and acronyms that are commonly used in the government.

Cardiff University also has a very extensive online index of legal abbreviations. On the Cardiff website you can search for legal terms by choosing the publication that the term appears in or by choosing the abbreviation option.

There are also other very well known sources for legal abbreviations. They include The Bluebook which is the very popular legal citation guide that is compiled by the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review and University of Pennsylvania Law Review. The Bluebook is an excellent resource to refer to when looking for legal abbreviations.

Listing of Legal Abbreviations

There are literally thousands of legal abbreviations. The following is a listing of some of the abbreviations and symbols. Some you may be familiar with while others are more commonly used and seen by those within the legal field.

• A.L.R (2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th)-American Law Reports (when followed by a number it represents the series or edition)
• BR or B/R-Bankruptcy
• CA-Class Action
• CL-Common Law
• Cx-Constitution
• Et al.-and others (Latin)
• F.App'x-Federal Appendix
• ISLN-International Standards Lawyer Number
• JNOV-Judgment notwithstanding Verdict
• LLC-Limited Liability Company
• Pp.-Pages
• R.E. or R/E-Real Estate
• S/J-Summary Judgment
• SOL-Statute of Limitations
• USC-United States Code
• WTO-World Trade Organization
• ®-Registered Trademark (Is commonly seen with very popular name brands)
• ©-Copyright Sign
• Π-Plaintiff (Greek Letter Pi)
• Δ-Defendant (Greek Letter Delta)
• §-Section (a double symbol is used for more than one section)