How to Find and Cite New York Law

New York writes the word "former" inside the citation itself. Not in a note afterwards, right in front of the law's name, like this: former Penal Law § 221.10, repealed by L 2021, ch 92, § 15.

That comes from the state's own style manual. A New York statute cite has no year in it. No edition, no volume, nothing that pins the text to a moment. So if a reader needs to know the section is gone, the cite has to say it out loud.

A shelf of named laws

New York's general statutes are the Consolidated Laws, pulled together in 1909 and sorted by subject. Each one is a numbered chapter of the Consolidated Laws. The Legislative Law is Chapter 32. Nobody uses that. In practice the name is the address, so you get Penal Law § 155.30 for grand larceny in the fourth degree, or General Business Law § 349 for deceptive practices. Briefs written outside the state stick an N.Y. on the front of those. New York courts don't bother.

The names aren't yours to invent, either. Appendix 4 of the Law Reports Style Manual lists every authorized name and short form, and tells you to use only what's on the list. Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 is correct. VTL § 1192 is not, even though every lawyer in the state says VTL out loud.

Then a small group of laws drops the section symbol completely. CPL, CPLR, ECL, EPTL, RPAPL, RPTL, SCPA and a few others. You write CPLR 5602 (b) (2) (iii), never CPLR § 5602. And when the cite sits inside parentheses, the subdivisions flip to square brackets: (CPLR 5602 [b] [2] [iii]), (Penal Law § 125.25 [1] [a], [b]). Same provision, two shapes, depending on where in the sentence it lands.

Some statutes never joined the Consolidated Laws at all. Those you cite to the session law that passed them, by year and chapter, like L 1962, ch 21, or by popular name and section, like ETPA § 5 for the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974. A lot of the state's rent law lives out there. It's why a housing brief looks unlike anything else on your desk.

History rides in the name

Since nothing in Town Law § 199 marks a date, New York pushes the timeline into the citation itself.

A repeal gets written as (former Penal Law § 221.10, repealed by L 2021, ch 92, § 15). A renumbering shows up as (UCCA 1812, as renum by L 1976, ch 156, § 8), or (Court of Claims Act former § 12-a, now § 8). An amendment rides along in the cite too, as in (Abandoned Property Law § 103 [a], as amended by L 1944, ch 498). And one dead subdivision hanging off a live section reads (Education Law § 6902 [3] [former (a)]).

The manual even keeps a list of authorized names for statute books that no longer exist, so an old provision is cited as Penal Law of 1909 § __ and can't be mistaken for the current Penal Law. So ask what you actually have when someone drops Penal Law § 221.10 into an email with nothing around it. A section number and a subject. Not a date, and no hint that the section was repealed in 2021.

Rules carry a title number, and the courts are in there

Agency rules go into the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York, which everyone calls the NYCRR. Executive Law § 102 says no rule takes effect until it's filed with the secretary of state. The Department of State's Division of Administrative Rules is the official compiler and puts out the State Register every week.

Titles run by agency. Title 12 is Labor. Cite down as far as you need, 12 NYCRR 23-1.7 [b] [1], with the same bracket habit as the statutes.

Two things catch people. Court rules live in the NYCRR at title 22, so the Court of Appeals rules cite as Rules of Ct of Appeals [22 NYCRR] § 500.1 [g]. And a regulation with its own name can be cited either way. The Rent Stabilization Code is 9 NYCRR, so RSC § 2523.5 and 9 NYCRR 2523.5 point at the same text.

What the pile looks like

New York runs 95,637 sections of primary law. Regulations are the bulk of it at 52,448, then 40,161 statute sections, 1,200 agency guidance documents, 1,088 court rules, 536 attorney general opinions and 204 constitutional provisions.

Inside the regulations, 45,286 are in force, 4,544 are repealed and 411 have been renumbered. The agency guidance is the part that should slow you down. Of 1,200 documents, 502 have been rescinded. That's 42% of the shelf, and a rescinded guidance document reads exactly like a live one.

A worked example

Say a filing cites RSC § 2523.5 and you've never touched New York rent law.

Translate the name first. RSC is the Rent Stabilization Code, which sits at 9 NYCRR, so you're reading 9 NYCRR 2523.5. Then find the statute behind it, and expect that statute to be unconsolidated, cited by session law year and chapter rather than by subject name. Then ask the question the cite can't answer for you: as of when? Look at the filing's date, not today's. If the section you land on differs from the one the filing relied on, New York already has the grammar for saying so, and your cite needs a "former" in it.

What bites

Don't read a bare cite as current. It carries no date and never did.

Don't invent an abbreviation. If it isn't in Appendix 4, spell the name out.

Don't add a section symbol to CPLR, CPL or EPTL, and don't drop one from Penal Law or Town Law.

And watch the local material. The Administrative Code of the City of New York is cited like a statute, Administrative Code of City of NY § 8-107 [13], but it is not a Consolidated Law and won't be where you expect.

Facts used

All New York corpus counts below are from Vaquill AI's US primary law data, measured 2026-09-18.

Priyansh Khodiyar

Co-Founder & CTO

Priyansh leads engineering and AI at Vaquill, from the matter workbench to drafting, document comparison, document matrix, and citation-verified research.