Comparison
BriefAuthority vs Zero Witness: Table of Authorities
On this page7 sections
- The TOA work BriefAuthority handles for you
- Printed page numbers, not a count from the cover
- Id. and supra should not become a separate manual job
- Keep your citations local, not just the PDF
- Finish with a Word table, not a text-file handoff
- Product maturity: what Zero Witness says
- Choose BriefAuthority when the table is the task
The short answer
if you need a Table of Authorities for a brief you will file, choose BriefAuthority for printed page numbers, Id. and supra handling, and a formatted Word export. Zero Witness's documented TOA workflow counts PDF pages from the cover, leaves out Id. and supra, and offers copy or .txt output. That leaves you to adjust separately numbered pages and add omitted short-form references yourself. BriefAuthority automates those TOA steps and gives you the source PDF alongside for review. Free, no account, no brief upload.
Have the final PDF ready? Open the free table of authorities generator, review the authorities beside the brief, and download your Word table. No sign-up or installation.
The TOA work BriefAuthority handles for you
| Item | Zero Witness: citation checker → TOA | BriefAuthority |
|---|---|---|
| Page references | PDF page count, cover as page 1; adjust separately numbered front matter | Printed page numbers from the final PDF, including roman-numeral front matter; confirm in review |
| Short forms, Id. and supra | Reporter short forms such as 570 U.S. at 360 count; Id. and supra do not | Resolves short forms, Id. and supra; review, merge or correct links beside the source PDF |
| Table export | Copy as formatted text into Word, or download .txt with dot leaders | Formatted .docx with category headings, dot leaders, hanging indents and italic case names, or copy as text |
| Starting document | PDF for page references; the guide says Word files and pasted text have no pages to read | Final PDF, scanned PDF with on-device OCR, or Word .docx; add the final PDF to a .docx for a finished table inside the Word file |
| Authority coverage | Guide lists cases, U.S. Code, C.F.R., Federal Register and rules; says state statutes will not appear | Cases, federal and state statutes, regulations, court rules and constitutional provisions; other authorities are less reliably detected |
| Passim | Not generated; every page found is listed | Court presets set whether passim is allowed; follow the court's rules |
| PDF upload | No; document read in the browser | No; document read in the browser |
| Citation data sent | Citation identifiers shown before sending for checks; Legal Matters also offers the table before anything is sent | Citation text, page references and document content stay in the browser; ordinary website traffic and coded analytics still occur |
| Price and account | Free; no account, per its TOA guide | Free; no account or authority limit |
| Case existence and quotation checks | Yes, within its published coverage; not-found does not prove a citation is fabricated | No external citation verification; formatting and indexing only |
| Checks whether a case is still good law | No | No |
Scope and sources: this comparison is published by BriefAuthority and based on Zero Witness's TOA guide, its homepage and FAQ, and BriefAuthority's documented features, checked on October 7, 2026. It is not a head-to-head accuracy or performance test. The Zero Witness column describes the guide's citation-checker-to-TOA workflow; its separate Legal Matters workspace has a different data-flow option, explained below.
Printed page numbers, not a count from the cover
A table that points to PDF position 12 when the brief says page 1 still needs correction. Zero Witness's TOA guide explicitly says: “Page numbers are the PDF's own count, with the cover as page 1, not the numbers printed on the brief.” It tells you to adjust separately numbered front matter.
BriefAuthority starts from the filing's printed pages. Its PDF workflow handles printed numbering and roman-numeral front matter, with the source PDF alongside so you can confirm each reference. If you edit the brief, export a new final PDF and run it again.
Id. and supra should not become a separate manual job
A case may appear in full once, then as Id. or supra on later pages. Zero Witness's TOA guide says those short-form references are not counted, so a page where the case appears only that way is missing from its entry. Supporting reporter short forms such as “570 U.S. at 360” does not close that gap.
BriefAuthority resolves those links as part of building the table. You can review, merge and correct them beside the PDF instead of starting with a workflow that excludes them. Ambiguous links still need your judgment. See Id. and supra in a Table of Authorities.
Keep your citations local, not just the PDF
BriefAuthority builds the table without sending your citations to a verification service. Document content, citation text and page references stay in the browser. Website assets and coded usage analytics still cross the network; security and privacy explains exactly what does and does not leave.
Zero Witness's documented checker flow sends citation identifiers for verification before generating the table—not the PDF or surrounding argument. Its separate Legal Matters workspace also offers a table before anything is sent, according to the same guide. That exception matters: the checker and workspace should not be described as one data flow.
Finish with a Word table, not a text-file handoff
BriefAuthority exports the formatted .docx. Category headings, dot leaders, hanging indents and italic case names are included. Court presets set whether passim is allowed. You can also give BriefAuthority your Word file and its final text-layer PDF to write the finished table into the Word file itself—without relying on Word for Windows to build it.
Zero Witness's TOA guide offers Copy as formatted text or Download .txt. Copying may be enough for a simple table, but it is not the same deliverable as a downloadable Word document. If you want a formatted Word TOA from the final PDF, open BriefAuthority.
Product maturity: what Zero Witness says
Zero Witness describes its service as “early, and small” on its homepage, and its Legal Matters workspace as “early and rough.” Those are its own descriptions, checked October 7, 2026; they do not establish its TOA accuracy. For this comparison, the concrete reasons to choose BriefAuthority are the documented workflow differences: printed page references, Id./supra handling and formatted Word output.
Choose BriefAuthority when the table is the task
- Your brief has a cover and separately numbered front matter. Build from the printed pages rather than correcting a PDF-page counter.
- Your argument uses Id. and supra. Resolve and review those links as part of the table, rather than filling in references a tool deliberately leaves out.
- You need a formatted Word deliverable. Download the .docx table, or provide your Word file and its final text-layer PDF to insert the finished table into the document.
- You have a scanned PDF. Use BriefAuthority's standalone PDF workflow with on-device OCR. The Word-plus-PDF insertion workflow requires a PDF with a text layer.
When to choose something else: if your main task is checking whether cases exist or quotations match opinions, Zero Witness's checker offers those checks within its coverage; BriefAuthority does not. Neither tool replaces a good-law citator. BriefAuthority automates table preparation, not legal validation—review every authority and page before filing.
Frequently asked
How is BriefAuthority different from Zero Witness?
For preparing a TOA from the final PDF, BriefAuthority handles three steps Zero Witness's documented checker workflow leaves to you: using printed page numbers rather than PDF positions, including Id. and supra references for review, and producing a formatted .docx instead of a copy/.txt handoff. BriefAuthority does not perform Zero Witness's external case-existence or quotation checks.
Are both Table of Authorities tools free?
Yes. Both TOA workflows are free with no account as checked October 7, 2026. BriefAuthority also has no authority limit. The reason to choose it is the TOA workflow: printed page numbers, short-form review and formatted Word export.
Does Zero Witness upload my PDF to make the table?
Its TOA guide says the PDF is read locally and not uploaded. In the citation-checker workflow, citation identifiers are shown before being sent for verification. The guide separately says its Legal Matters workspace offers the table before anything is sent. No PDF upload should not be confused with no network traffic.
Does Zero Witness count Id. and supra in the TOA?
Its published TOA guide says Id. and supra are not counted in the documented checker workflow, although reporter short forms such as 570 U.S. at 360 are. BriefAuthority resolves short forms and provides tools to review and correct their links; check the result against the source PDF.
Can I download the table as a Word document?
BriefAuthority exports a formatted .docx TOA. With a Word file and its final text-layer PDF, it can write the finished table into your Word file. Zero Witness's TOA guide documents copying formatted text into Word or downloading .txt; it does not document a .docx TOA download for that workflow.
Is Zero Witness an early-stage product?
Zero Witness describes its service as “early, and small” on its homepage. It calls its Legal Matters workspace “early and rough.” These are the provider's own descriptions, checked October 7, 2026, not a finding about TOA accuracy or reliability.
Does either tool replace Shepard's or KeyCite?
No. Zero Witness says it is not a citator; checking that a case exists does not establish that it is still good law. BriefAuthority formats and indexes citations without external legal validation. Check good law separately and review every table entry before filing.
Sources
- Zero Witness: How to build a table of authorities without uploading your brief, accessed 2026-10-07zerowitness.ai
- Zero Witness: homepage and FAQ on citation checks, Legal Matters and product maturity, accessed 2026-10-07zerowitness.ai
- BriefAuthority: how the PDF and Word workflows work
- BriefAuthority: supported files, citation styles and courts
- BriefAuthority: security and privacy
BriefAuthority · free
PDF, scan or .docx · no upload