Beginning Jan. 1, 2021, the North Carolina appellate courts will use the universal citation method for judicial opinions and publications. Each opinion filed by the Supreme Court of North Carolina and the North Carolina Court of Appeals will receive a unique opinion number and include paragraph numbers. The universal citation method increases access to judicial opinions by providing an identifying number independent from any third-party publisher’s volume of cases and making it easier to find opinions online. Universal citations will be used as parallel citations only, and citations to the official printed reporters will remain the same.

You can read more about the Supreme Court’s order adopting the universal citation method here and here.

November 24, 2020/by Appellate