Definition
LOC is an abbreviation appearing in historical legal texts, most commonly as a shortened form of locus (Latin: "place") or as an abbreviation within citation strings (loc. cit., short for loco citato, "in the place cited"). In ecclesiastical and canon law contexts, LOC also appears in connection with litis contestatio — the formal process by which parties joined issue in a suit — though it is the full phrase, not the abbreviation, that carries doctrinal weight.
1. Loc. (locus): Used in older legal writing to denote "place," as in locus delicti (place of the wrong) or locus contractus (place of the contract). Appears frequently in choice-of-law discussions and conflict of laws analysis in 19th-century treatises.
2. Loc. cit. (loco citato): A citation shorthand meaning "in the place cited" — directing the reader back to a source already fully identified in a prior footnote or text passage. Common in legal treatises and digests through the mid-20th century, now largely displaced by "id." or repeated full citation.
3. LOC in ecclesiastical practice: In the records and pleadings of ecclesiastical courts, LOC appears as an abbreviation in connection with litis contestatio, the foundational procedural moment at which the defendant's general denial joined the issue and the cause was formally "contested." This is the sense captured in Burrill.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To style the hair in dreadlocks; a verb form from the noun "locs" (dreadlocks).
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed as an independent entry; "loc." appears only as an abbreviation marker in citation practice.
The gap here is total. The modern vernacular verb "to loc" has no legal meaning whatsoever. Researchers encountering "loc." or "LOC" in legal documents, digests, or treatises are dealing with Latin abbreviations or procedural shorthand — not any term derived from the common English usage.
Common Confusion
Loc. cit. is sometimes confused with id. Both signal a return to a previously cited source, but they are not interchangeable. Id. refers to the immediately preceding citation only. Loc. cit. refers to the same page of a source cited earlier but not necessarily immediately before — it may reach back several footnotes or paragraphs. Misreading one for the other in historical treatise research can send a researcher to the wrong source or the wrong page.
LOC as an abbreviation for locus should not be confused with the standalone term locus, which has its own developed legal meaning (see RELATED TERMS). Researchers working with abbreviated 19th-century texts should always resolve the abbreviation in context before assuming meaning.
Why It Matters in Research
The chief research risk with LOC is abbreviation ambiguity. Historical legal texts — digests, treatises, ecclesiastical court records — use "loc." without always specifying whether locus, loco citato, or litis contestatio is intended. Context is decisive: a citation string almost certainly means loc. cit.; a conflict-of-laws discussion almost certainly means locus; an ecclesiastical pleading record almost certainly gestures toward litis contestatio.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should be alert to the following:
In Burrill specifically, the entry appears under or near LITIS CONTESTATIO and uses LOC as a bridge abbreviation. Burrill's treatment connects ecclesiastical practice to the Romano-canonical procedural tradition. The "general answer" he describes — the defendant's denial in the libel — is the English ecclesiastical court's adaptation of the civil law contestatio, not a common law pleading concept. Do not map this onto common law issue-joining without care.
Loc. cit. as a citation tool is heavily used in 19th-century legal treatises but has almost vanished from modern legal writing. When it appears in historical sources, the researcher must trace back to the original full citation to identify the actual source being referenced — skimming for loc. cit. without that trace is a research dead end.
Locus-derived abbreviations matter most in conflict of laws, criminal jurisdiction, and contract formation research, where the place of the act determines applicable law. The abbreviation in those contexts is a compressed form of a doctrine with substantial case law behind it.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary entry — filed in proximity to LITIS CONTESTATIO and CONTESTATIO LITIS — treats LOC in its ecclesiastical procedural sense. Burrill describes the contestation of suit as "the process of coming to an issue" and the issue itself, noting the defendant's general denial in ecclesiastical practice as the operative procedural act. His citation to Hallifax's Analysis of Civil Law confirms the Romano-canonical lineage of the concept.
Burrill does not treat LOC as an independent term of art. It functions in his dictionary as an abbreviation anchor pointing toward the fuller entries. Researchers should treat the Burrill entry as a cross-reference gateway, not a self-contained definition. No other historical dictionary in the current Law Mind shelf treats LOC as a standalone entry. The abbreviation's meaning must be reconstructed from context and from the substantive entries it abbreviates.
Jurisdictional Note
Litis contestatio as a procedural concept was operative in English ecclesiastical courts and in civil law jurisdictions; it has no direct common law equivalent. American jurisdictions operating under code pleading or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have no formal counterpart to the contestatio moment. Researchers applying Burrill's LOC entry to American practice contexts should treat it as historical background, not operative doctrine.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Ecclesiastical Courts (for litis contestatio and Romano-canonical procedure); Pleading and Issue (for the common law parallel to issue-joining); Conflict of Laws (for locus-derived choice-of-law principles).