This index covers, exclusively and completely, the three volumes of the Legal Papers of John Adams. It follows the pattern of other indexes in The Adams Papers , with modifications and amplifications appropriate to its specialized subject matter.

The chief special features are: First, a Table of Statutes cited throughout the volumes, arranged chronologically under each of its divisions and placed ahead of the main index. Second, inclusion in the main index of all legal cases cited from whatever jurisdiction in alphabetical order by name of the first-mentioned party. Third, the systematic citation in the index entries of Legal Papers “form” and “case” numbers wherever relevant. For example, “Form X” refers to the tenth sample pleading form in John Adams' Pleadings Book printed in the first volume, and “No. 10” refers to the tenth case (Bancroft v. Lee) in the over-all serially numbered sequence of cases included in the Legal Papers. The citations of forms and cases are in addition to volume-and-page citations. Fourth, references to the identifying “sketches” of the judges, lawyers, and law clerks to John Adams noticed in the Register of the Massachusetts Bench and Bar, printed in vol. 1:xcv–cxiv.

Otherwise, and as usual in The Adams Papers , the index is designed in some measure to supplement the annotation. The editors and Mrs. Carl Pitha, principal indexer of these volumes, have tried to furnish the correct spellings of proper names, to supply forenames for persons who appear in the text only with surnames, to indicate places of residence and occupations of persons whose forenames are either unknown or not known with certainty, and to distinguish by dates or other means persons with identical or nearly identical names. Markedly variant spellings of proper names have been cross-referenced to what are believed to be their most nearly standard forms, and the variant forms found in the documents appear in parentheses after the spellings believed to be standard. Wives' names, with a few exceptions for special reasons, follow their husbands' names, with see-references under their maiden names when known.