Table of authorities in Word: building a list of legal authorities that stays accurate

Table, list or index of authorities?

The same idea goes by several names, and the differences matter for how you build it:

• Table of authorities — the US brief format. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure require cases (alphabetically arranged), statutes and other authorities, with references to the pages of the brief where they are cited.
• List or index of legal authorities — the arbitration format. Each authority carries a number (CL-1, RL-1) and is filed with the submission, much like an exhibit.
• Index of Authorities — the moot court format, governed by each competition’s rules, sometimes with paragraph rather than page references.

Building it in Word with fields

Word for Windows builds a table of authorities from hidden TA fields that you place by marking citations:

1. Select the first citation of an authority and press Alt+Shift+I, or choose References › Mark Citation.
2. In Selected text, edit the long citation as it should appear in the table; choose a Category; in Short citation, enter the short form Word should search for.
3. Click Mark for this citation, or Mark All to mark every long and short citation that matches.
4. Repeat for each authority. Word inserts each marked citation as a TA field in hidden text.
5. Hide field codes and hidden text so the pagination is right, click where the table belongs and choose References › Insert Table of Authorities; pick a category or All and a format.
6. Before filing, click to the left of the table and press F9 to update it. Never edit the finished table by hand — your changes are lost at the next update.

Microsoft states that tables of authorities aren’t supported in Word for Mac or Word for the web. The feature also depends on English (U.S.), Canadian French or Dutch language support being enabled. If your team drafts on Macs, plan for the manual method.

Categories and “passim”

Word groups entries by category — cases, statutes, other authorities, rules, treatises, regulations and constitutional provisions — and lets you replace a category or add new ones, for example “Treaties” or “Arbitral awards”. The Use passim option replaces five or more page references to the same authority with “passim”; switch it off if your forum wants every reference listed.

The manual method — and when it is better

Word’s table lists page numbers. If your forum wants paragraph references, or an arbitral list ordered by CL- number, the field-based table does not fit as it stands, and a manual list in a Word table is often faster and more reliable:

1. Build the list from the final draft, not an earlier one.
2. For each authority, search the document for its short form and number and note every paragraph or page where it appears.
3. Sort by number (arbitration) or alphabetically within categories (US briefs).
4. Recheck the references after the last edit — a moved paragraph is the most common error.

Legal authorities in arbitration: CL- and RL-

ICSID describes legal authorities as sources of law — the text of the law, doctrine or jurisprudence — numbered individually and consecutively throughout the proceeding, behind CL- or CLA- for the claimant and RL- or RLA- for the respondent. Its model procedural order starts at CL-001 and RL-001, puts the number on the first page of each authority and in its file name, and names the accompanying index “Index of Legal Authorities”.

The “Cited at” column refers to paragraphs of your own submission — the usual reference in arbitration, where submissions have numbered paragraphs.

Pinpoints and short forms

A pinpoint is the exact place in the authority that supports your point: an article of a treaty, a paragraph of an award or judgment, a page of a book without numbered paragraphs. Cite the authority in full the first time, define a short form, and use only the short form afterwards.

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 23 May 1969 (“VCLT”), Art. 31(1) (CL-2)

VCLT, Art. 31(3)(c) (CL-2)

Put the short form next to the full citation in the list so that a reader who meets “VCLT” on page 30 can decode it. Use the same short form throughout the submission and in the witness statements and expert reports you file with it.

Moot court: the Index of Authorities

In moot court competitions the index is part of the scored written submission, and the rules are strict. The Vis Moot rules, for example, require citations in the text in shortened form, the full citation in the List of Authorities, and a reference to each paragraph of the memorandum where an authority is cited; “passim” is not sufficient. Other competitions ask for page numbers. Read the current year’s rules before you build the index — and never rely on Word’s passim option for a competition that forbids it.