Bieber’s Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations: A Reference Guide for Attorneys, Legal Secretaries, Paralegals, and Law Students
3rd edition: limited to US federal and state reports and attorney general opinions, provided forms used not only by law journals and law reviews, also by courts.
Raistik provides coverage of English reports, and many abbreviations from other countries, included the United States.
the first edition of Bieber’s Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations was published in 1979
This Sixth Edition provides many new or expanded entries and includes abbreviations for:
Domestic, foreign, and international agencies
Organizations
Periodicals
Reporters
Popular acts
Legal terms and phrases
Bieber’s Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations: A Reference Guide for Attorneys, Legal Secretaries, Paralegals, and Law Students (M. M. Prince ed. 5th ed. 2001) contains over 30,000 legal abbreviations.
The purpose of the Dictionary was “to shorten the process of searching for the precise meaning of various letter symbols used in American law books” (foreward to the 1st edition), including law dictionaries, legal encyclopedias, law reporters, law treatises, law reviews and other legal documents. Dories M. Bebier did not take in account, in general, abbreviations used in non-United States law publications.
In the 1st edition (1978), the entries were alphabetized according to the first letter of each word.
The 2nd edition (1984) changed the method of alphabetization, entries were alphebetized as if each entry was one world.
The 3th edition (1988) contained over 12.000, but was was compiled and edited by career, reference law librarians. The author was Mary Miles Prince is the Associate Director for Library Services at Vanderbilt University’s Law
School Library in Nashville, Tennessee. She is also a Lecturer in Law at the Law School, where
she teaches legal research.
Additionally, Mrs. Prince was Coordinator for the Tennessee Supreme Court Libraries for twenty
years. She is an active member of both the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and
the Southeastern Chapter of AALL.
Mary Miles Prince served as Coordinating Editor of the Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation,
17th,18th and 19th Editions. Other reference works edited by Prince include Prince’s Dictionary of
Legal Citations and, with Igor I. Kavass, the World Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations.
The 5th edition (2001) contained more than 35.000 entries in 1103 pages (being the last 3 appendixes). For the first time, it includes a reversed portion of the Dictionary, enabling users to localte the abbreviations by titles, terms and names. Part I of this work enables users to identify the meaning of abbreviations and acronyms employed
in American legal literature. It offers a forward dictionary, presenting both new and
historical abbreviations and an extensive range of acronyms and symbols.
Part II enables users to identify the abbreviations for titles, names, and terms used in legal
literature. This part provides an all-inclusive index of full titles with references to their appropriate
abbreviations. This system is used also in the 6th edition.
In the 5th editions, the structure of the work remains the same: it looks more a decoder than a dictionary. Its entries are generally limited to American legal abbreviations, with an important influence of English legal abbreviations.
There is not cross-references in the Bebier´s Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations, which produce repetitive minutiae.
The Dictionary comes with a companion volume, Biebers Dictionary of Legal Citations. This work may be of interest to legal researcher and legal writters, but its decryption of legal abbreviations are not useful. It is useful for legal researchers and practitioners trying to write citations.
The Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations is available online through Lexis-Nexis.
Reversed
Title: Bieber’s Dictionary Of Legal Abbreviations Reversed: A Dictionary Of Terms And Titles With
Their Abbreviations
Author: Lois A. O’Brien,Igor I. Kavass,Duane A. Strojny,
Publisher: William S Hein & Co
Pages: 659
Published: 1994-11
Popular abbreviations:
- Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (Fifth Supp), Vol 1, pp 205-206.
- UNFICYP United Nations Force in Cyprus UNFPA United Nations Fund for Population Activities…
- Black’s United States Supreme Court Reports; Blatchford’s United States Circuit Court Reports; Blackford’s Indiana Reports; Henry Blackstone’s English Common Pleas Reports; W.
- Reports, India. Big. B. & B. … Bigelow’s Bench and Bar of New York. Big. B. & N. . . . Bigelow’s Cases on Bills and Notes. Big. Cas Bigelow’s Cases, William I. to Richard I. Big. Cas. B. & N. . Bigelow’s Cases on Bills & Notes.
- … (bound with Benloe); Dalrymple’s Scotch Session Cases. Dal. Sh. Dalton on Sheriffs. Dale Cl. HB Dale’s Clergyman’s Legal Handbook. Dale Leg. Rit. Dale’s Legal Ritual (Ecclesiastical) Reports. Dull. Dallas’ Pennsylvania and United States Reports; Dallas’ Styles, Scotland; Dallas
- Bess. Prec. Besson’s New Jersey Precedents. Best Beg. & Rep. Best on the Right to Begin and Reply. Best Ev. Best on Evidence. Best Jur. Tr. Best on Trial by Jury. Best Law Dic. Best’s Law Dictionary. Best Pres. Best on Presumption of Law and Fact. Best & Sm. Best and Smith’s English Queen’s Bench Reports. Betts’ Adm. Pr. Betts’ Admiralty Practice. Betts
- Hurd F & B … Hurd on the Laws of Freedom and Bondage in the United States [A publication] (DLA) Hurd…
- Edition of Harris’ Modern Entries. Ev. Jud. Pr. Evans’ Practice of the Supreme Court of Judicature. Ev. Md. Pr. Evans’ Maryland Practice. Ev. Pl. Evans on Pleading. Ev. Poth. Evans’ Translation of Pothier on Obligations. Ev. Pr. & Ag. Evans on the Law of Principal and Agent. Ev. RL Evans’ Road Laws of South Carolina. Ev. Stat. Evans’ Collection of Statutes. Ev. Tr. Evans
- Johns. Cas. . . . Johnson’s New York Cases. Johns. Ch. …. Johnson’s New York Chancery Reports ; — Johnson’s English Vice-Chancellors’ Reports ; — Johnson’s Maryland Chancery Decisions.
Tags found in this Dictionary (according to Google Books): 1ndia 1nst 1nstitute 1nsurance 1nternational Law 1owa 1rish Admin Administration Admiralty American Law Annotated Appeals Reports Austl Australian Bankr Bar Association Board Bull Circuit Court Reports Civil Code Commission Common Pleas Reports Comp Const Council County Court of Appeals Court of Session Crim Criminal Law Decisions Digest Ecclesiastical English Chancery Reports English Common Pleas English King’s Bench Equity Reports Exchequer Reports Federal House of Lords King’s Bench Reports Law Review Lawyer Legal lndia lrish National Nisi Prius Nisi Prius Reports Nova Scotia Ohio Patent Pennsylvania Prac Practice Probate Proc Quarterly Queen’s Bench Reports Eng Reports N.Y. Reports tempore Scotch Series South Carolina South Wales Stat Statutes Supreme Court Reports U.S. District Court United University Law Review Upper Canada York York Supreme Court
Other books about legal abbreviations
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (17th ed. 2000). KF245 .U5 2000 at Reserve, Reference Office & Quick Reference Floor 6
The Bluebook remains the undisputed gold standard for formatting and analyzing legal citations, despite sustained efforts to find a more manageable alternative. Criticized by many for its unwieldy format, The Bluebook nonetheless serves as a particularly useful resource for decoding abbreviations for early state official reporters (see Table 1, for U. S. jurisdictions listed alphabetically) and legal periodicals (see Table 13). Opinions vary, of course, but The Bluebook is also considered by some as the court of last resort for untangling mysterious citation knots of the Gordian variety. In this regard, a logical (and surprisingly helpful) place to begin is with the first entry, Abbreviations, in the index. Copies of older editions are located in the Classified Stacks.
The United States Government Manual, Appendix A: Commonly Used Abbreviations (2001/2002 ed. JK 421.U57 2001/2002 at Reserve & Reference Office
Appropriately shortened to USGM, this small paperback is one of several �fast and easy� sources to search when you need to find the name of a federal agency or hearing board. Appendix A of the current edition contains a straightforward list of agency-related abbreviations and acronyms arranged alphabetically. Thus, sample entries include:
HUD = Department of Housing and Urban Development
JAG = Judge Advocate General
UNICOR = Federal Prison Industries, Inc.
At Gallagher, paper copies of the most current editions of the USGM are on the shelves in Reserve and the Reference Office, with older versions located in the Classified Stacks. A handy link to the free USGM is also embedded in MARIAN, the Gallagher Law Library online catalog. Ootherwise, this useful government publication can be viewed at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gmanual/index.html.
World Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (Igor L. Kavass & M. M. Prince, eds. 1991/2001. K865.K3 1991 at Reference Office & Quick Reference Floor 6
The World Dictionary is a four-volume, loose-leaf tome that undertakes three discreet tasks. The first is a list of abbreviations, arranged first by language group and then by continent or country, found in legal literature around the world. The second comprises a collection, set out in Appendix A, of abbreviations and sigla found in legal documents written before 1607. Obviously intended for use by serious scholars of law, history, and history of law, this section of the World Dictionary includes legal abbreviations found in Roman, medieval, civil, canon, and English common law. The third undertaking, the results of which can be found in Appendix B, is a compilation of legal abbreviations by subject, which remains a work-in-progress. To date, legal abbreviations have been compiled for the subject areas of Environment, Maritime, Military, Taxation, and United Nations. Although this scope of coverage by subject is still quite narrow, the depth of coverage on the subjects reported to date is noteworthy.
Black’s Law Dictionary (Bryan A. Garner, ed. 7th ed. 1999. KF156.B53 1999 at Reserve, Reference Office & Reading Room
This guide would be incomplete without mentioning the classic, Black’s Law Dictionary, which contains (in addition to its 24,000 legal definitions) a separate list of abbreviations commonly found in American legal references. For those who have not yet discovered this bit of Gallagher trivia, multiple copies of Black’s Law Dictionary (in various editions) have been placed atop the divider shelves throughout the Reading Room. Additional copies, together with older editions dating back to the first in 1891, can also be found at the given call number location in the classified stacks. The 7th edition is also available on Westlaw: BLACKS.
Abbreviations Dictionary, by Ralph De Sola (7th ed. 1986). PE1693.D4 1986 at Reference Office
This dictionary of abbreviations includes a greater number of international, cultural, scientific, geographical, and historical sources, and correspondingly fewer, expressly American legal abbreviations than any of the other resources listed here. Thus, it may be especially useful in analyses of international law references, as well as in cases where a citation abbreviation remains stubbornly illusive. The author’s stated purpose in selecting entries for this dictionary was to find order in the midst of “abbreviatiorial acronmyical” [sic] chaos (p. ix), and his efforts toward that end have produced a volume that easily merits a place on the top ten list of “The Most Diverting Books in Gallagher Law Library.” While this sleeper’s lists of dysphemistic place-names and bafflegabs may be unlikely sources of answers to thorny problems in citation analysis, they may nonetheless provide fast relief in unexpected ways for sufferers of common citation chaos, otherwise known as chronic congestion of cited passages, to which students of legal research are believed to be particularly susceptible. This result, it should be noted, is completely (and happily) consistent with the author’s professed and implied objectives for this work.
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