Five useful resources for Tables of Authorities

Tables of Authorities are complex, finicky things. Luckily, some really smart people have figured out a number of useful tips, tricks, and best practices to wrestle TOAs into order. Here are a few of the ones we like the best. 

The Legal Office Guru: Table of Authorities – The Ultimate Guide

The Legal Office Guru, aka Debora Savadra, has an impressive resume: a legal secretary, paralegal, programmer/analyst, and law office consultant. Her eponymous website has a wealth of information on using Microsoft Word and Excel to their maximum potential — and she offers dedicated courses on using Microsoft Word effectively, assembling documents faster, and on building legal briefs correctly.

The Legal Office Guru’s Ultimate Guide to Tables of Authorities is one of the best resources we’ve seen on using Microsoft Word to generate TOAs. As she mentions, the only legal profession-specific feature in Microsoft Word is its TOA tool — but that tool isn’t very intuitive. Her guide covers how to use Microsoft Word’s built-in functionality, but also goes further, explaining how to adjust your workflow so that TOAs are easier to produce at the very end. 

The Legal Office Guru: Hack TOC to create Points & Authorities

Another winner from the Legal Office Guru. Tables of Points and Authorities are a particularly complicated flavor of TOA. As she writes, it’s a combination of the Table of Authorities and Table of Contents. Instead of listing the cited authorities in alphabetical order, a Points & Authorities format lists each authority in a different order.

On her blog, the Legal Office Guru shares how one of her readers leveraged Microsoft Word’s Table of Contents (TOC) functionality, alongside its TOA functionality, to “hack” together a tool that can prepare a Table of Points and Authorities. 

But just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea. The Legal Office Guru points out that dedicated software exists to do this for you — and if you can afford those tools, you should use those instead.

University of Hawaii – Tech for Lawyering Competencies – Tables of Authorities

We have to assume that the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai‘i is as idyllic as it sounds. How bad could a torts class be when you’re a few minutes from the beach? 

But we digress. 

The law library’s fantastic set of practice resources on using Microsoft Word for legal tasks includes a comprehensive, illustrated guide to creating Tables of Authorities. Their video series is similarly impressive, and worth a review. 

Deep dives on specific practice requirements: the Typelaw Blog

Typelaw is an online Table of Authorities generator, and their blog contains a wealth of deep dives into specific practice requirements for TOAs. These include: 

• 6 Important Rules for Electronic Filing in the California Courts of Appeal
• How to Create a Compliant Appellate Brief Appendix
• A Guide to the Intricate Briefing Rules in the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals

Joshua Lenon: Building a Table of Authorities in Microsoft Word with Joe Dudek

If you’re a visual learner, the best free video tutorial on TOAs that we’ve found comes from the YouTube channel of Joshua Lenon, the lawyer in residence at Clio. Joshua’s video is led by Joe Dudek, a bankruptcy attorney from Maryland. 

As Joe says, most automated functions in Microsoft Word aren’t about the tool itself, it’s about learning some other skill that enables you to use that tool effectively. 

You can check out the full video here.