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Alphabetize this!

Alphabetize this! Sure, it may be a zillion degrees outside, and, yes, my son and I attended last night's Phillies-Braves game, but nevertheless appellate briefs demand to be finalized and filed (as on Friday I filed one in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania and today I'm filing one in the Third Circuit).

Given that this began as, and remains, an "appellate" blog, the following question presents itself -- How should unusual case names be alphabetized in an appellate brief's table of authorities? For example, assume you cite the following four cases in your appellate brief:

United States v. Jones;

United States v. $154,362.05 in U.S. Currency;

United States v. 75 Broken Television Sets; and

United States v. Smith.

How should those cases be alphabetized in the brief's table of authorities? We will leave the question of how to alphabetize case names that begin with "In re"; "Ex parte"; etc. for a later post. Readers with informed views on this question are invited to respond to this post via email. Thanks much!

Update: I will run a post later featuring reader responses, which have already begun to arrive. Perhaps in a follow-up post, i will also ask for reader input on how to "alphabetize" cases that have identical names.

Full post as published by How Appealing on July 06, 2010 (boomark / email).