Online Tool for Puzzling Legal Abbreviations

The Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations, developed by Dr. Peter Clinch of the Law Library at the University of Cardiff, Wales, is a great tool to use when faced with a mystifying abbreviation in a citation. According to the site itself, the Cardiff Index is a “web-based service [that] allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law. . . . The database mainly covers law reports and law periodicals. . . .”

You can search by abbreviation to find the full title of the publication or by title to find its preferred abbreviation. It is also possible to possible to search from abbreviation to title using only a part of an abbreviation, or from title to abbreviation using any words (not just the first word) which appear in the title.