How I Handle Tables of Authorities (Without Losing My Mind)

by Lawyer X | Apr 25, 2025

If you’ve practiced law for any length of time, you probably know that Tables of Authorities have a way of showing up when you least want to deal with them.

Over the years, I’ve developed a straightforward approach that makes preparing TOAs more manageable. It’s not perfect, but it helps. And now, as part of our team working on legal tech tools to automate TOAs, I’m thinking a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Here’s how I approach it.

Before I Start Writing

The first thing that helped me was getting more comfortable with Microsoft Word. Like a lot of lawyers, I thought I was fine using Word—until I realized I was spending too much time fighting with it.

If you haven’t already, I’d recommend taking a legal-specific Word course. There are some great ones out there from Affinity Consulting and Legal Office Guru. These courses cover things like formatting, styles, and yes, TOAs. It’s time well spent.

While I’m Writing

One thing that makes TOAs easier for me is building them into my drafting process, instead of leaving everything until the end.

Here are a few habits I’ve found useful:

Track Citations As I Go. I keep a running list of the cases I’m citing—usually in a separate document. Full citations, short forms, any special references. It’s simple, but it saves time later.
Set Short Forms Early. I decide on short forms at the beginning, especially for cases I’ll refer to more than once. It helps avoid inconsistencies.
Use Reference Tools When I Can. There are tools like CiteRight or Juris-M that can help with managing citations. I’ve experimented with both, and while they’re not perfect, they can save time if you’re working with a lot of sources.
Highlight Citations Temporarily. While drafting, I highlight citations in a different color so they’re easy to spot. Once I’ve finished the TOA, I remove the highlights. It’s a small thing, but it makes the review process easier.

Why This Matters

For me, the goal is to spend less time on the mechanics and more time on the substance of the argument. TOAs are important, but they shouldn’t take over the drafting process.

That’s part of why we’re building tools to help automate TOAs—because if we can take something that’s time-consuming and turn it into something simpler, that’s a real benefit for lawyers who are already stretched thin.

Creating Tables of Authorities: What the Options Look Like

Since preparing TOAs isn’t exactly pleasant, there are a lot of tools that aim to automate them. We’ve put together this list of TOA tools to help you understand their pros and cons.

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