A regional reporter is a set of bound volumes that collects state appellate and supreme court opinions from a group of neighboring states and prints them in a single, standardized series. Seven of these reporters, together, cover every state and the District of Columbia. They are part of the National Reporter System published by Thomson Reuters (originally West Publishing), and they are the source most lawyers and researchers reach for when they need a state court opinion.1Legal Information Institute. National Reporter System
The reason the system exists is practical. Fifty states produce appellate decisions in fifty different ways, and tracking them down one state at a time would be miserable. Grouping decisions by region puts related jurisdictions on the same shelf and in the same citation format, which makes it far easier to compare how different states handle similar legal issues.
The Seven Regional Reporters and the States They Cover
The National Reporter System divides state appellate decisions into seven geographic regions.1Legal Information Institute. National Reporter System The groupings date to the late 1800s and reflect historical publishing clusters rather than today’s federal circuit boundaries, so some assignments can feel arbitrary. Kansas sits in the Pacific Reporter. Oklahoma does too. That is just how the lines were drawn.
- Atlantic Reporter (A., A.2d, A.3d): Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.
- North Eastern Reporter (N.E., N.E.2d, N.E.3d): Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio.
- North Western Reporter (N.W., N.W.2d): Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
- Pacific Reporter (P., P.2d, P.3d): Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
- South Eastern Reporter (S.E., S.E.2d): Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
- South Western Reporter (S.W., S.W.2d, S.W.3d): Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.
- Southern Reporter (So., So.2d, So.3d): Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
The Pacific Reporter is the largest by state count. The numeral after each abbreviation (2d, 3d) marks a new “series” that began when the volume count climbed into the hundreds and the publisher reset the numbering. A case in A.3d appears in the Atlantic Reporter, Third Series. The series number carries no legal weight; it is a shelf-organization tool. Higher series numbers generally mean more recent cases, but the volume and page numbers are what actually locate the opinion.
How to Read a Regional Reporter Citation
A full citation tells you how to find the opinion and how much authority it carries. Consider:
Smith v. Jones, 250 P.3d 118 (Kan. Ct. App. 2011)
Each piece does specific work:
- The italicized party names identify the case. The plaintiff or appellant comes first, then “v.,” then the defendant or appellee.
- The volume number (250) is the bound book on the shelf.1Legal Information Institute. National Reporter System
- The reporter abbreviation (P.3d) identifies the Pacific Reporter, Third Series.
- The number after the abbreviation (118) is the page where the opinion begins.
- The parenthetical (Kan. Ct. App. 2011) names the deciding court and the year.
The court parenthetical matters more than it looks. A state supreme court decision carries more authority than an intermediate appellate court decision with an otherwise identical citation, and the parenthetical is the only place that distinction appears. When the case comes from the state’s highest court, many citation systems drop the court name and leave only the state abbreviation and year inside the parentheses.
Pinpoint Citations
To point a reader at a specific passage rather than the whole opinion, add a pinpoint page (a “pincite”) after the starting page, separated by a comma:
Smith v. Jones, 250 P.3d 118, 124 (Kan. Ct. App. 2011)
Here, 118 is where the opinion starts and 124 is the page containing the language you are quoting or relying on. Courts expect pincites in briefs and motions. Leaving them off when you are quoting specific reasoning forces the judge to hunt through the opinion, and that is a fast way to annoy the person reading your filing.
Parallel Citations
A parallel citation gives the same case in two different reporters. Because regional reporters are unofficial publications, some states still publish their own official reporter containing the same opinions. Where both exist, local court rules may require you to cite both so a reader can pull the case from either set.
Whether you need a parallel citation depends on where you are filing. Under the Bluebook, you include the parallel cite only when filing in a court of the state whose official reporter published the case. For a federal filing or a filing in a different state, the regional reporter cite alone is enough. A parallel citation looks like this:
Smith v. Jones, 100 N.Y.2d 50, 760 N.E.2d 300 (2003)
The official state cite comes first, then the regional reporter cite. Not every state still runs an active official reporter, so check the local rules before assuming you need one. Getting it wrong can mean a brief kicked back for correction.
Official vs. Unofficial, and What Does Not Appear
Regional reporters are unofficial reporters. An official reporter is a government-approved publication of court decisions; an unofficial reporter is a commercial publication that reproduces the same opinions.2Legal Information Institute. Reports Many states that once ran their own official reporters have discontinued them, so for those states the regional reporter is effectively the only widely available printed source. Even where an official reporter still exists, courts across the country routinely accept the regional reporter version.
Regional reporters also include only published opinions, meaning decisions the issuing court has marked for publication because they establish or clarify a legal rule.1Legal Information Institute. National Reporter System State appellate courts mark the majority of their decisions as unpublished, especially when the case applies settled law to routine facts. Those unpublished opinions are usually available in electronic databases, but their citation value varies. Some courts prohibit citing them. Others allow it but treat them as persuasive rather than binding, often noting that such citation is “disfavored.” A few treat unpublished opinions the same as published ones, though that remains the minority approach. Check the local rule before relying on an unpublished decision in any filing.
Where to Find Regional Reporters
Physical bound volumes still line the shelves at public law libraries and courthouse collections. A complete run of even a single regional reporter can fill dozens of shelf-feet, and most private firms have stopped keeping their own sets, but government-funded law libraries maintain them as part of public access. If you want to look up a case on paper, a county law library is the place to start. Most offer photocopying or printing for a small per-page fee.
For most people today, access is digital. Westlaw and LexisNexis host the full text of every regional reporter and use star pagination to show exactly where each printed page breaks within the on-screen text.3LexisNexis. How to Use Star Pagination Bracketed numbers with asterisks appear inside the opinion, each tied to a page break in a specific print reporter. That lets you cite a page number confidently without ever opening the bound volume. Many public law libraries also offer free or low-cost terminal access to these databases for people without their own subscriptions.