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Square means the year is needed to find it; round means it is not.
Also known as: Year in brackets in a case reference, Square vs round brackets in law
One of the neatest distinctions in any notation, and almost nobody outside law knows it. Square brackets mean the volume is identified by its year; round brackets mean the volumes are numbered continuously and the year is only helpful context.
Square brackets around the year indicate that the year is essential to locating the volume, because the report series numbers its volumes within each year. Round brackets indicate that volumes run in a continuous sequence and the year is supplementary.
A record about how a reference is written, not about what the law says. Nothing here is legal advice.
United Kingdom
A rule that carries real information in one character. Given a citation in round brackets, the volume number alone will find the report; given one in square brackets, it will not.
Not observed in American citation, which uses parentheses for the court and year at the end of the reference and encodes nothing in the bracket shape.
United States
A four-digit year enclosed either in two square brackets with right-angled arms or in two curved round brackets.
Whether the year sits in square or round brackets is itself a distinction with a meaning.