Why do round brackets signify the judgment date, and square brackets the publication year?
<p>I always mix up the significations of round and square brackets. To wit, why aren't they the other way around? Why do SQUARE <S>round</s>  brackets signify the judgment date, and ROUND <s>square</s> brackets the publication year?</p>
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<h3>Date/Year of Decision (Rule 3.4)</h3>
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<p>The year in the citation means either the date the case was published or the date of judgment. If there are round brackets around the year, it means the date of judgment. If only round brackets are in the citation, you also need the volume number to locate the case. Square brackets are used to enclose the year of publication. In some cases it may be necessary to include both square and round brackets.</p>
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<p>Maureen F. Fitzgerald, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureen-f-fitzgerald-phd-b1972518/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">BComm (Univ. Alberta), JD (Univ. Western Ontario), LLM with Merit (London School of Economics), PhD (University of British Columbia)</a>. <em>Legal Problem Solving – Reasoning, Research and Writing</em> (2019 8e), p 223.</p>

<p>This is purely arbitrary and particular to a certain set of citation rules that you are studying that is used by a particular community of legal scholars.</p>
<p>Some other sets of citation rules (there are probably half a dozen of them in all, at least) don't use square brackets and instead use round brackets in all circumstances (e.g. the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Blue Book</a>). There are also, for example, a Chicago set of conventions, and a Modern Language Association set of conventions, for citations.</p>
<p>Each set of citation rules has its own stylistic quirks.</p>

<h1 id="all-words-are-made-up">All words are made up</h1>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/KnLiK.gif" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/KnLiK.gif" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>It is what it is because people many years ago agreed that’s what it is and now we’re stuck with it.</p>

legal-citation