Table of Authorities Order: Categories and How to Alphabetize

What the rules say about order

Illinois is the outlier: its “Points and Authorities” lists authorities under each point heading in the order of the Argument, so the category order below does not apply there. See what is a table of authorities for how that format differs.

A default category order

How to alphabetize cases

Three decisions cover almost every case list. First, sort by the case name as it appears in the citation, including abbreviations such as FCC or NLRB, and ignore italics and punctuation. Second, choose letter-by-letter or word-by-word sorting. Letter-by-letter ignores spaces, so Newman comes before New York Times; word-by-word treats the space as coming first, so New York Times comes before Newman. A plain character sort, which is what most software uses, behaves word-by-word because a space sorts before any letter. Third, decide how to handle procedural phrases such as In re and Ex parte: sort them as written (under I and E), which is what automated sorting does, or file them under the party or subject name. Either is defensible. Mixing them in one table is not.

In a federal criminal brief, United States v. entries can fill half the case list. Leave them under U; do not re-sort them by defendant name elsewhere in the alphabet. The same applies to State v. and People v. in state briefs, and to Commonwealth v. where that caption is used.

Federal and state cases: one list or two?

FRAP 28(a)(3) asks only for cases “alphabetically arranged,” and a single combined list is the most common choice in federal courts. Some state courts and many offices split cases into Federal Cases and State Cases, or list each state separately, which helps when the brief leans on one state's law. Neither federal rule requires the split. Check the court's rule and recent briefs from its own docket, then keep the same structure for every brief in the case.

Statutes and regulations

The common convention is federal before state, and within each code by title, then section, in numerical order. Sort sections as numbers. A text sort puts § 1291 ahead of § 922 because “1” comes before “9”; the correct order is § 922, § 924, § 1291. Subsections follow their section: § 922(g) before § 922(o). State statutes are usually grouped by state, alphabetically by state name, then by code and section. Uncodified session laws and public laws often come after the codified statutes. Regulations follow the same pattern by C.F.R. title, part and section. The convention varies; some courts and offices list state provisions first in a state appeal.

Constitutional provisions

List the U.S. Constitution before state constitutions. Within the U.S. Constitution, articles usually come before amendments, each in ascending order, then section and clause: U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3; U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; U.S. Const. amend. IV; U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. State constitutions follow, grouped by state, in the same article-then-section pattern, for example Cal. Const. art. I, § 13. Remember the category's position varies: Rule 34.2 puts it after cases; some offices put it first.

Rules and other authorities

Order of page references

Within each entry, page numbers run in ascending order, separated by commas. Use a range such as 7-10 only when the authority appears on every page in the range, which is the Supreme Court's standard in Rule 34.2. Where your court allows it, many offices switch to passim at five or more page references — that threshold comes from Microsoft Word's built-in "Use passim" option. The U.S. Supreme Court's Rule 34.2 says a table of authorities should not use passim (added in the 2023 rules and kept in the rules effective March 16, 2026), and the D.C., Tenth and Eleventh Circuits bar it too (D.C. Cir. R. 28(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 28.3(C); 11th Cir. R. 28-1(d)). Follow your court's rule. For how short forms and Id. feed into these numbers, see Id. and supra in a table of authorities.