Id. and Supra in a Table of Authorities: Which Pages to List

The rule: one entry, every page

FRAP 28(a)(3) asks for “references to the pages of the brief where they are cited” (FRAP 28), and the Supreme Court's Rule 34.2 asks for “every page on which an authority is cited” (Rules and Guidance). A short form is a citation. So the page where it appears belongs in the table, attached to the full authority. What never appears in the table is the short form itself: no entry reading “Id.”, no separate line for “Rehaif, 588 U.S. at 234.”

Id.: credit the immediately preceding authority

Id. means the same authority as the one cited immediately before it (Cornell LII § 6-500). To index it, look back to the last citation, not the last full citation. If the previous cite was itself an Id., keep going back until you reach a named authority. Three cases need care:

Supra and hereinafter

Supra refers back to an authority cited in full earlier in the document. Under Bluebook Rule 4.2(a) it is not used for cases, statutes and most other primary authority, which have their own short forms (UC Davis Law Library guide). In briefs it is common with treatises and law review articles: “LaFave & Scott, supra, § 5.1(a).” A hereinafter name, bracketed after the first full citation, works the same way and follows the same limits. For the TOA the rule does not change: the page goes to the entry for the full source, written in full, and the hereinafter name itself never becomes an entry.

Short cites and name-only references

A short cite such as Rehaif, 588 U.S. at 234, or Greer, 593 U.S. at 509, credits the full case. So does a textual reference with no reporter at all: “As Rehaif explained, knowledge can be inferred from circumstantial evidence.” Most practitioners index those name-only references, because the reader who wants every discussion of Rehaif expects to find that page. Some firms index only citations with a reporter or pin cite. Pick one practice and apply it to every authority. Watch for parties with similar names: two “United States v.” cases in the same brief are resolved by the defendant's name, never by “United States” alone.

Citations in footnotes

No federal rule we know of says how to show a footnote in a TOA page list, and conventions vary. Three are common: list the page only (“12”); add the footnote number in Bluebook pin-cite style (“12 n.4”), which borrows the “n.” form used to cite a footnote in a source (Tarlton Law Library); or use a firm-specific pattern. Litera's Best Authority, for example, lets users set a footnote pattern so that a citation in footnote 5 on page 16 appears as “16n5” or “16fn5” (Litera support). If your court or firm has a style, follow it; otherwise use one form throughout.

Worked example: from brief text to TOA entry

Rehaif shows “2-3” because it is cited on both pages (the full cite, then Id.), so a range is allowed even under the Supreme Court's rule; pages 6 and 8 are listed separately because it is not cited on page 7. Without the name-only reference on page 8, the entry would be incomplete. The cases are real (*Rehaif*; *Greer*); the brief pages are illustrative.

Common errors

How tools handle short forms

BriefMark says it finds every case, statute, rule and regulation, “short cites, Id. and supra included,” and writes Word's own TA field codes back into the same .docx so Word builds the table, as published on its site. It needs the brief as a Word file and Word to finish the table. BriefAuthority, in development, is designed to work from the final PDF instead. In an internal pre-launch test on two Supreme Court merits briefs, most page-list misses before review were short references by case name alone, such as “Rehaif.” Its review screen is built to show every authority with its pages so you can link Id. and supra references and merge short forms before export. Specification as designed; confirmed at launch.