Case Naming Conventions 

These are some of the conventions followed by the Justis Editorial team when entering case names for use on JustCite. Certain conventions are not listed because they pertain to Justis’ software tools or internal procedures and are of no interest to anyone outside the team.

Not all cases will necessarily adhere to these conventions straight away; our priority is always to get cases onto the system as quickly as possible, so from time to time cases will be added with names that do not adhere to these conventions, and the Editors will alter the names at a later stage.

GUIDE RULES/NOTES
Apostrophes Name’s or Names’
O’Name
  • Replace incidences of double apostrophes and quotation marks with single apostrophe
Attorney General’s References Attorney General’s Reference (No. 1 of 2008)
Attorney General’s Reference (Nos. 2 and 3 of 2008)
Attorney General’s Reference (No. 1 of 2008), R v Party
Capital letters Party v Party
  • Party names should not be entered in ALL CAPITALS
Children/Infants/Minors A (A Child)
B (An Infant)
C (A Minor)
Civil Cases (basic format) Surname v Surname
Forename Surname v Forename Surname (family cases)
  • Do not enter forenames of parties, except for clarity on cases where the Surnames are the same (e.g. family cases)
Companies/Businesses Name (A Firm)
Name (A Partnership)
Name Ltd
Name Co. Ltd (or Name Company Ltd)
Name & Co.
Name & Sons
Name (In Administration)
Name (In Liquidation)
Name (In Receivership)
Name Plc
NameA (t/a NameB)
Other Bodies Name City Council
Name Borough Council
Name County Council
Name District Council
Name London Borough Council
Name Rural District Council
Name Metropolitan District Council
Attorney General
Commissioners of Customs and Excise
Commissioners of Inland Revenue
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
Commission of the European Communities
Council of the European Union
Department for SubjectA and SubjectB
Department for SubjectA, SubjectB and SubjectC
DPP
European Economic Community
European Union
Government
Minister for
Secretary of State for SubjectA and SubjectB
Secretary of State for SubjectA, SubjectB and SubjectC
HM Offfice
The Law Society
  • Except where otherwise stated, do not abbreviate official departments or offices
  • Precede ‘Her Majesty’s’ offices with abbreviated ‘HM’
  • Retain ‘The’ for Law Society
Conjunctions/Generic terms Claimant v Defendant
Name and Wife
Claimant v Defendant1 and Defendant2
Name and Another v Name
Name and Others v Name
Name et Al v Name
Name1 ex parte Name2
The Same v Name
  • Single lower case v to separate adversaries
  • Separate parties with ‘and’ not ‘And’ or ‘&’
  • Do not list multiple parties where avoidable.
Criminal Cases (basic format) R v Defendant
R v Forename Surname
  • Single ‘R’ to denote the Crown
  • Put Forename first to allow for deduplication
Definite articles Commissioner for…
Minister for…
Department for…
Secretary of State for…
Attorney General
UK
Society/Association/Body
  • Except where otherwise stated, do not precede government departments, agencies and offices, or societies and associations with ‘The’
Judges’ Names Mr Justice Name
Judicial Review Cases R (Claimant)
“In re” cases In re name
Initials (Individuals) A v B
Initials (Businesses) A B Companyname Ltd
A & B Companyname Ltd
Multiple party/case names R v NameA; R v NameB; R v NameC
Name v Name (No. 2)
Name v Name sub nom Name v Name
  • Separate multiple case names by a single colon
Name/party qualifiers NameA, Administrator of NameB
NameA, Assignee of NameB
Name (A Bankrupt)
Name (Deceased)
Name (Executor)
Name (Executrix)
NameA, Executor of NameB
NameA, Executrix of NameB
Name (Widow)
Name Esq.
Name pet. diss.
Unwanted Text in case names Year/court/date/citation info at end of case name
Between
Name (plaintiff/appellant/claimant) v Name (respondent/defendant)
  • Courts, dates, years and citations should not appear at the end of case names
  • ‘Between’ should not appear before name
  • Party positions should not appear in the name