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Automated Legal Briefs: Saving Time for Law Firms

Lawyers bill by the hour, but they shouldn’t waste hours on formatting. See how automation assembles complex legal briefs and court filings.

A judge’s gavel resting on a neatly organized stack of automated legal briefs

Automated Legal Briefs: Saving Time for Law Firms

A legal brief is a masterpiece of argumentation. It is also a nightmare of formatting. Table of Authorities. Table of Contents. Footnotes. Exhibits. Pleading lines.

If a paralegal spends 4 hours fixing the pagination because a paragraph moved, that is 4 hours of billable time that the client hates paying for.

1. The Table of Authorities (TOA)

The TOA lists every case and statute cited in the brief.

  • Manual: Read the brief, find every citation, list the page numbers. If the brief changes, start over.
  • Automated: The software scans the text for citations (e.g., “Roe v. Wade”), builds the list, and updates the page numbers dynamically.

2. Exhibit Management

A brief often references “Exhibit A,” “Exhibit B,” etc. Automation tools can take the main brief PDF and merge it with 50 other PDF attachments (emails, photos, contracts). It automatically inserts slip sheets (“Exhibit A”) between them and re-numbers the pages of the entire bundle (Bates Numbering).

3. Pleading Formatting

Courts have strict rules. “Double spaced. 12pt Courier. Line numbers in the left margin.” Templates ensure that every brief generated meets the specific local rules of the court (e.g., “Southern District of New York”) without the lawyer needing to fiddle with margins.

Conclusion

Automation allows legal teams to focus on the argument, not the admin. It produces error-free, court-ready filings in minutes.

Court-ready instantly. MergeCanvas provides the precision formatting tools required for high-stakes legal document generation.