A table of authorities is the indexed list at the front of a legal brief that names every case, statute, constitutional provision, regulation, and secondary source cited in the document, along with every page where each one appears. It lets a judge or clerk jump straight to any authority supporting an argument without paging through the whole brief. Federal appellate courts require one in nearly every brief, and many state courts do too.
What Goes Into a Table of Authorities
Sources are grouped into categories, not thrown into one alphabetical pile. The standard categories are constitutional provisions, statutes, cases, legislative materials, administrative and executive materials, and secondary sources such as treatises and law review articles. Each entry gives the full citation followed by every page in the brief where that source is mentioned.
The Order Categories Appear In
The Bluebook, the dominant citation manual in American legal practice, sets the hierarchy. Constitutional provisions come first, then statutes, then cases, then legislative materials, then administrative materials, and secondary sources last. Within each category, federal sources precede state, and state precedes foreign or international.
Cases usually make up the bulk of the table and have their own internal order. Federal cases come before state cases. Within federal cases, the order runs from the U.S. Supreme Court down through the circuit courts of appeals to the district courts. State cases are arranged alphabetically by state and then by court rank within each state. Within any single court level, cases are listed alphabetically by case name.
Statutes follow a parallel pattern. Federal statutes codified in the United States Code are listed by title number from lowest to highest, and state statutes come after, arranged alphabetically by state.
Page References and Passim
Each entry lists every page where that authority is cited. When a source appears so often that listing individual pages would clutter the table, the Latin term passim replaces the page numbers. It means “throughout” and signals that the source runs across the document. Word typically inserts passim automatically once a source is cited on five or more pages.
When Courts Require One
Federal appellate courts treat this as a hard requirement. Under the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the appellant’s brief must include “a table of authorities—cases (alphabetically arranged), statutes, and other authorities—with references to the pages of the brief where they are cited.” The same rule applies to the appellee’s brief and to reply briefs.
The U.S. Supreme Court has its own version. Any document filed with the Court that exceeds 1,500 words must contain a table of cited authorities listing cases alphabetically, together with constitutional provisions, statutes, treatises, and other materials, with page references for each.
State courts vary. Some require a table of authorities in any appellate brief regardless of length. Others tie it to a page threshold, and the threshold itself differs by jurisdiction. A few leave it optional but strongly expected. Check the local rules of the court you’re filing in before you build the table, because the specific format and the triggering threshold are set at the court level.
How to Build One in Microsoft Word
Most attorneys and paralegals assemble a table of authorities using Word’s built-in citation-marking tools. The work happens in two phases: mark every citation in the document, then generate the table from those marks.
Marking Each Citation
Select the first citation in your brief. Open the Mark Citation dialog box by pressing Alt+Shift+I or by clicking “Mark Citation” in the Table of Authorities group on the References tab. Word fills the “Selected text” box with whatever you highlighted. Edit that text so it reads exactly the way you want the citation to appear in the finished table. Choose the correct category from the dropdown (cases, statutes, rules, and so on), and review the “Short citation” box, which Word uses to find other instances of the same source throughout the document. Click “Mark” to tag that single instance, or “Mark All” to tag every matching occurrence at once. Then click “Next Citation” and keep going until you’ve worked through the whole brief.
Most errors in a table of authorities start here. If a citation is marked under the wrong category, it lands in the wrong section of the finished table. If the short citation text doesn’t match how the source appears elsewhere in the brief, Word misses those other references and the page numbers come out incomplete. A few extra minutes verifying each mark saves significant cleanup later.
Generating the Table
Once every citation is marked, place your cursor where the table should appear, typically right after the table of contents at the front of the brief. Before generating, hide field codes and hidden text by toggling the Show/Hide button on the Home tab so Word paginates the document correctly. Then go to the References tab and click “Insert Table of Authorities.” Choose whether to include all categories or just one, pick a format, and click OK. Word builds the table, grouping entries by category and listing page numbers for each.
Proofread the result against the brief. Verify the page numbers, confirm nothing was missed, and check that cases are actually alphabetical within their section. If you edit the brief after generating the table, right-click the table and select “Update Field” so the page numbers reflect the current pagination.
Formatting Conventions That Cause Problems
Case names in a table of authorities follow standard abbreviation rules. Words that frequently appear in institutional party names get abbreviated when they’re part of a citation: “Department” becomes “Dep’t,” “Corporation” becomes “Corp.,” “University” becomes “Univ.” Any word of eight or more letters can be abbreviated if doing so saves substantial space and the abbreviation clearly suggests the original word. When you refer to a case by name in the running text of the brief rather than as a formal citation, far fewer abbreviations apply.
Use the full, formal citation for each source the first time it appears in the table: volume number, reporter, and initial page for cases, or title and section number for statutes. Consistent formatting across every entry matters because judges and clerks use the table to navigate directly to the authorities behind each argument. If page numbers are wrong, citations are incomplete, or categories are jumbled, the reader’s confidence in the underlying analysis starts eroding before they reach the substance.
Consequences of a Missing or Deficient Table
Courts take these formatting requirements seriously. In milder cases, a court returns the brief and orders corrections, which burns time you may not have against a filing deadline. In more serious situations, courts have imposed monetary sanctions on counsel personally. A North Carolina appellate court ordered defense counsel to pay double the court-imposed costs of the appeal after the brief failed to contain a proper table of authorities. At the extreme end, repeated or egregious noncompliance with briefing rules can contribute to dismissal of the appeal itself.