The 2020-2021 Washington Law Review Board recently voted to adopt the Fair Citation Rule. The Fair Citation Rule removes the use of et al.–in our case, just for the first full citation of a piece–and instead lists each author’s name. This change has been adopted because research demonstrates that women authors and authors belonging to underrepresented groups are often under-cited, which can cause disparity in job placement, tenure consideration, etc. For more, see this professor’s Twitter thread, this article, this blog post, and this Google Sheet of other law reviews that have adopted some version of the Fair Citation Rule.

The new rule will be implemented in our December Volume 95, Issue 4 book and all books thereafter, as well as in our Online pieces. The following rule will be added to the WLR Style Guide:

More than Two Authors for a Book or Periodical – Departure from Bluebook Rule 15.1

WLR departs from Bluebook Rule 15.1(b). WLR always requires that the names of each author be listed for a source that has more than two authors the first time that source is cited. For subsequent short form citations, WLR follows Bluebook Rule 4.2, which provides that “et al.” should be used following the name of the first author.