Citations are to printed pages in bound volumes. This prevents pinpoint citation to material in an electronic case report. Advocates of change believe paragraphs within cases should be numbered to allow for pinpoint citation. On the other side are those who do not so much oppose a neutral citation system as they believe such a system should not be mandatory or exclusive. West Publishing, for example, argues that market forces should determine which citations are used.
Opponents also believe a neutral citation system has a number of inherent problems.
Conversion of cases and reporting systems would be costly. With each state free to adopt its own system, citations would become Balkanized. The ABA first took up this issue at its 1995 annual meeting. But rather than decide it, it appointed the special committee to consider bringing the citation system in line with the growing availability of cases on the Internet and computer bulletin boards. The preliminary report takes somewhat of a middle ground, urging all jurisdictions to adopt a neutral citation system that is equally suitable for print and electronic cases, but also recommending that, until electronic versions of case reports become more common, citations should continue to include parallel print sources.