How to Create a Table of Authorities in Microsoft Word

A table of authorities is a list of references in a legal document, such as statutes, cases and rulings. Microsoft Word can automatically create a table of authorities for you provided you mark the citations in the document and complete the steps to initialize the creation of the table.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Type your legal document, including all the cases, statues, rulings, treatises, regulations and Constitutional provisions that you will cite. You may either mark the citations as you type, or finish the legal paper and go back through it, marking the citations at the end.

2. Mark your citations. Highlight the citation that you wish to mark. Choose "Insert" on the menu bar. Navigate down to "Reference" and click on "Index and Tables." Choose the "Table of Authorities" tab at the top of the dialog box. Click on the "Mark Citation" button at the bottom. Choose the category of your citation from the drop-down list (e.g. case, ruling, regulation) and click "Mark" or "Mark All" (depending on whether you want to include all references to this particular citation in the table of authorities or just one instance).

3. Click the "Next Citation" button at the top of the dialog box. Microsoft Word searches for common legalese such as "v." and dates in parentheses "(1950)." Mark each citation as appropriate. Click the "Close" button at the top right of the screen (red X) to return to your document. You may want to do a manual scan of the document to ensure Word correctly picked up all your legal citations.

4. Move your cursor to the end of your document (or wherever you wish the table of authorities to appear). Choose "Insert" on the menu bar. Navigate down to "Reference" and click on "Index and Tables." Choose the "Table of Authorities" tab at the top of the dialog box. Make sure the Category type is set to "All" so your table includes all types of legal citations. Press "OK." Microsoft Word creates a table of authorities using all your marked citations, organized by citation type.

Tips & Warnings

• If you add extra citations in a legal document after creating your table of authorities, you may wish to delete the existing table and create a new one to ensure the new citations are added properly.