Lawyers use the Bluebook, to conform their legal writing to styles that courts and other lawyers find acceptable. As a student you will use it in your Legal Research and Writing class to ensure that your memos and appellate brief follow the form your professor finds acceptable.

If you are so lucky as to be a cite-checker for a professor, this book might become like a Bible unto you. Else, if you are like me, you will find it counter intuitive, maddeningly organized, and downright tedious. There are several books on how to use the Blue Book, I recommend you get one.

By the way, the process of proofing your work to conform to the Bluebook style is called, by those in the know, "blue-booking."