What is the proper way to cite a court petition (or other court documents) in an MLA format bibliograpy?
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Well, it’s probably too late for your paper now. I hope an important legal case wasn’t hanging in the balance. For such a reference question in the future, you might want to contact the Perkins Reference desk (where they have the *MLA Handbook*) or else the reference desk over at the Law Library.
The MLA Handbook seems to deal only with published legal materials (court decisions, statutes, etc.), and even then for the details refers to *The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation* by the Harvard Law Review Assn. There’s a copy behind the Perkins Reference desk at 348.7347 U58x, and probably a newer edition over at Law. (Incidentally, the MLA Handbook incorrectly cites this as *The Blue Book* — it’s actually one word!)
At a glance, however, AP didn’t see guidelines for unpublished court documents in *The Bluebook*. Since AP doesn’t purport to be a lawyer, I recommend that you contact the fine folks over at the law library, who can lend you their expertise in these matters. I’m guessing that since this isn’t handled by MLA, you will have to fudge it to look like you think MLA should look like.