Microsoft Word Table of Authorities Feature for Legal Briefs

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Summary

• Use Microsoft Word’s table of authorities feature to simplify and automate the creation of a TOA when you’re drafting legal briefs.
• When you’ve done the legwork, Word will automatically update the page numbers of citations in your brief.

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Legal briefs, such as appellate briefs, require a table of authorities that lists all the cases, statutes, and secondary sources you cite. Creating your TOA manually is cumbersome, labor-intensive, and prone to errors.

There’s an easier way. Microsoft Word has a built-in TOA feature. To automatically create a TOA with Word, first mark the citations and then insert the TOA in the appropriate place in your legal brief.

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For example, I have the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 56 and several cases on pages 4 and 5. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp. is cited twice on both pages, as you can see here:

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Figure 1

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Mark the First Instance of the Citations in Your Brief

To mark a citation, select the text of the case or statute that must be included in the TOA. In the References tab, click on Mark Citation, like this:

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Figure 2

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In the Mark Citation dialogue box, edit the citation in the Selected text field to exactly how you want it to appear in the TOA. In this example, you’ll want to remove the pincite of 599 since it shouldn’t be in the TOA.

In the Category dropdown, categorize the citation as a case, statute, or other appropriate category. Also, edit the Short citation field to the proper short-cite form you want to use. Finally, click on the Mark button to mark this entry as a citation, like this:

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Figure 3

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The marked citation should look like the following. Note that Matsushita now appears in both the Short citation and Long citation lists.

Repeat these steps for the first instance of every case, statute, treatise, or other source of authorities you cite. It’s very important to note that these steps apply to the first instance only, as shown here:

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Figure 4

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Mark the Subsequent Instances of the Citations in Your Legal Brief

You’ll need to mark citations you use in multiple instances. Chances are you’re citing a statute or case multiple times throughout your brief. In our example, Matsushita was cited twice. To mark the subsequent use of a citation previously marked, follow these steps.

Select the text of the citation, in this case, the second instance of Matsushita on page 5 of the example. Click on Matsushita in the list of cases in the Short citation, and you’ll see its long citation in the Long citation field. Click on the Mark button you see here:

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Figure 5

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Now You Can Build Your TOA

Marking all the citations is the hard part. Once you’ve done that, you can create your TOA. In the References tab, simply click on Insert Table of Authorities. Select All in the Category list, as you can see here:

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Figure 6

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If you’ve properly categorized your citations, Word will do the work of categorizing all the citations under their proper headings. Notice that the TOA shown below indicates that Matsushita has been cited on pages 4 and 5.

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Figure 7

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As you work on your brief, the pages on which these citations appear will likely change. When you update the TOA, the page reference will automatically update. To update the TOA and the page references, right-click on the TOA and select Update Field.

You don’t need to wait until the end of your writing to mark citations and create the TOA. As you write your brief, it may be helpful to know what cases and statutes you’ve cited and on what pages they appear. Thus, the TOA is useful not only for the reviewing court or your grading professor but also for you.

If you make a mistake in categorizing the citation, you don’t need to start over. Show the hidden paragraph marks to expose the hidden code, which will look like this:

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Figure 8

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Notice the switch \c at the end of the citation mark; \c 1 is the switch for cases, \c 2 for statutes. In the example below, Anderson was miscategorized as a statute (\c 2). Change it to \c 1, and Word’s automatic TOA feature will then be able to pick it up correctly as a case rather than a statute.

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Endnotes

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Author

Steve Chu

...

View Bio →

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Author

Steve Chu

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