Table of Authorities Checker
Check your table of authorities before the clerk does
Drop the final PDF. Every entry in its table of authorities is checked against the pages of the brief: wrong pages, pages left out, authorities missing from the table, citation typos. However the table was made.
Clerks and moot court graders check one thing first: that each authority is on the page the table says. The brief is read in this browser tab and never uploaded. How we know
What it checks
Eight ways a table goes wrong, checked in seconds
Wrong page listed
The table lists a page where the authority isn't cited in any form, not by citation, short form or name.
Page left out
The brief cites a case on a page, in full or in short form, and the entry doesn't list it.
Missing from the table
An authority is cited in full in the brief and has no entry at all.
Citation doesn't match
The entry's citation differs from the brief's: 568 U.S. 3980 in the table, 568 U.S. 398 in the brief.
Same case, two citations
The brief cites one case with two different reporter pages. One of them is a typo.
Shifted table
Every page reference is off by the same amount: the table was built before pages moved, or it counts the cover.
Passim the court bans
Passim in a Supreme Court, D.C. Circuit, Tenth or Eleventh Circuit brief, among others.
Pinpoints and duplicates
A pinpoint page left in an entry, or the same case listed twice.
Things courts treat differently, such as pages where an authority appears only as Id. or supra, or a case cited only inside a quoting parenthetical, are listed separately as worth a second look, not as errors.
Why tables are wrong
Word counts pages differently from the PDF you file.
Hidden TA codes push text onto the next page, front matter restarts the numbering, and a last-minute edit moves everything after it. The checker reads the printed page numbers of the final PDF, so it compares against what the court receives.
Why TOA page numbers go wrongFound a problem?
Get a corrected table from the same screen.
Below the check, every authority in the brief is listed with its pages. Review it and export a formatted .docx table built from the final PDF, or use the Word file and its final PDF to write the table into your document.
Table of Authorities generatorQuestions
Checking a table of authorities
The rules it checks against, court by court, are in the reference library.
Check a briefWhat does the table of authorities checker check?+
It reads the table of authorities already printed in your PDF and compares every entry with the brief itself. It reports pages the table lists that don't cite the authority, pages that cite a case but aren't listed, authorities cited in full in the brief but missing from the table, entries whose citation differs from the brief's (usually a typo), cases cited two different ways, pinpoint pages left in entries, duplicate entries, passim where the court doesn't allow it, and a table shifted by a page throughout.
How is this different from building a new table?+
Building a table gives you a new one. The checker tells you what is wrong with the one you already have, entry by entry, so you can fix a table made in Word, by Westlaw Drafting Assistant, by Best Authority or by hand, or check a colleague's before filing. If you want a corrected table, the same screen exports one built from the final PDF.
Where do the page numbers come from?+
From the page numbers printed on the PDF you will file, including roman-numeral front matter. That is what the court sees, and it is where Word's own tables most often go wrong: hidden field codes, section breaks and citations that run across a page break.
Will it flag things that aren't really errors?+
It separates the two. Problems it is confident about (a page that doesn't mention the authority at all, a case cited in full but not listed, a citation that differs from the brief) are listed as problems. Things courts and firms handle differently (pages where the authority appears only as Id., supra or by name, cases cited only inside a quoting parenthetical, statute pages a table skips on purpose) are listed as worth a second look. Every item opens the authority and the page so you can decide.
Is my brief uploaded?+
No. The PDF is read in your browser tab and never leaves your computer. A Content-Security-Policy on this page blocks connections to any other host, so it cannot be sent anywhere. Scanned PDFs are read with on-device OCR.
Does it check whether the cases are good law?+
No. It checks that the table matches the brief. It is not a citator and does not tell you whether an authority is still good law. Verify every citation and follow your court's rules.
What does it cost?+
Nothing. No account, no install, no limit on authorities.