BriefAuthority
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Contents

  1. How it worksi
  2. Compareii
  3. Mac guideiii
  4. TOA rulesiv
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Specification

How BriefAuthority builds a Table of Authorities from your PDF.

The short answer: it is built to read the final PDF in your browser, find each authority with its printed page numbers, show you every one to confirm, and write a formatted .docx — without the brief leaving your computer.

Specification as designed; confirmed at launch. Updated 2026-09-24.

briefauthority.com · Greer-merits-brief-final.pdf · processed on this computer

Review authorities

71 found · 3 short forms linked · 1 to review

Export .docx

Cases

Greer v. United States

1, 3, 9, 14Found

Rehaif v. United States

“Rehaif” on p. 11 linked

1, 2, 4, 11Short form linked

United States v. Olano

Id. at 734 → p. 4

4, 9, 12–15Short form linked

Johnson v. United States

p. 34 — quotation?

11, 30Review

Puckett v. United States

12, 13Found

Statutes

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)

2, 5, 7Found

18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2)

2Found

Rules

Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b)

3, 11, 18Found
Interface preview — BriefAuthority is in development. Authorities from a public Supreme Court merits brief.

Five steps

From the filed PDF to a finished table

Each step happens in the browser tab. The review step is where you stay in control.

  1. brief.pdf → this tab

    Step 1

    Open the final PDF

    Drag the brief into the browser tab. PDF.js reads the text of every page on your computer. Scanned briefs need an OCR text layer first.

  2. front-matter offset

    Step 2

    Map printed pages

    Tell BriefAuthority where page 1 starts and whether the front matter uses roman numerals. Every reference is reported by printed page, not PDF index.

  3. citations marked

    Step 3

    Detect authorities

    A JavaScript legal-citation parser finds full case citations, short forms, Id. and supra, and pattern rules find statutes, regulations, court rules and constitutional provisions.

  4. every row confirmed

    Step 4

    Review

    Each authority is listed with its pages. Merge, split, link a short form to its full cite, re-categorize, or exclude a quotation. Nothing is exported until you have looked.

  5. leaders and pages

    Step 5

    Export the table

    Download a .docx with category headings, alphabetized entries, dot leaders and page references, ready to paste into the brief.

The specification

BriefAuthority — specification sheet

As designed · confirmed at launch · rev. 2026-09-24

BriefAuthority specification
InputThe final brief as a text-based PDF (exported from Word, Pages, Google Docs or any drafting tool). Scanned PDFs need OCR first.
Where it runsIn the browser tab, on your computer. The PDF is not uploaded and no server sees its contents.
PlatformsmacOS, Windows, Linux and ChromeOS in a current browser (Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox). No Word add-in.
Authorities detectedCases (full cites, short forms, Id., supra); U.S.C. and state statutes; C.F.R. regulations; federal and state court rules; constitutional provisions; other authorities you add.
Page referencesPrinted page numbers, with a front-matter offset for roman numerals. Page ranges when an authority runs across consecutive pages.
PassimOff by default. Optional threshold where your court allows it — the Supreme Court's Rule 34.2 (effective March 16, 2026) says a table of authorities should not use passim.
CategoriesCases, Constitutional Provisions, Statutes, Regulations, Rules, Other Authorities — order adjustable to your court's rule.
Output.docx Table of Authorities with tab leaders; also copy-as-text.
What it does not doIt does not validate citations (not a citator), does not check Bluebook form, and does not edit your brief.
Price (planned)$39 one-time, or $9 per brief. No subscription.
ExhibitA

Internal test, pre-launch3

129/131

cases found before review

Compared with the Tables of Authorities filed by counsel in two U.S. Supreme Court merits briefs.

Per-brief results of the internal test
BriefCases found2Exact page lists1
Greer v. United StatesNo. 19-8709 · 59 pages70/7084%
Bouarfa v. MayorkasNo. 23-583 · 84 pages59/6177%
Both briefs129/131before review

Method. We ran the citation engine on two public U.S. Supreme Court merits briefs — Greer v. United States, No. 19-8709 (59 pages), and Bouarfa v. Mayorkas, No. 23-583 (84 pages) — and compared the cases it found, and their pages, with the Tables of Authorities filed by counsel.

Result. It found 70 of 70 cases in Greer and 59 of 61 in Bouarfa: 129 of 131. The page lists matched exactly for 84% and 77% of cases before any review.

Limits

  1. 1Most page misses were later references by case name alone (for example, “Rehaif held…”), which the review screen is built to surface.
  2. 2Statutes and rules were not benchmarked in this test.
  3. 3Two briefs are a small sample; this is an internal, pre-launch measurement, not an independent audit.

Privacy architecture

The brief is designed to stay on your computer — by architecture, not just by policy.

The PDF is opened with the browser's File API, parsed by PDF.js in the tab, indexed by a citation parser that runs in JavaScript, and written to a .docx in memory. It is designed with no upload endpoint for the brief; at launch you can verify it in the Network panel or by going offline after the page loads. See Table of authorities without uploading the brief.

Your browser tabFilebrowser File APIPDF.jsreads each pageCitation parserJavaScript, in the tab.docxwritten in memoryNo upload endpointthe brief never leaves the tab
Every step runs inside the tab. The .docx is generated in memory and saved to your own computer.

Questions about the spec

How can I check that BriefAuthority doesn't upload my brief?+

Open your browser's developer tools, go to the Network panel, and watch it while BriefAuthority indexes the PDF — no request carries the file. You can also load the page, disconnect from the internet, and run it offline.

Why does it start from the PDF instead of the Word file?+

The PDF is what you file, so its page numbers are the ones that must appear in the table. Starting from the PDF also works on a Mac, in Pages and in Google Docs, where Word's Table of Authorities fields aren't available.

What happens with Id. and short forms?+

They are detected and attached to the authority they refer to, and shown on the review screen so you can confirm or fix the link. Id. is never listed as its own entry; its page is credited to the full citation.

Is the specification final?+

No. BriefAuthority is in development. This page describes the specification as designed; details are confirmed at launch, and this page will be updated when they change.

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