This listing includes a few events of general importance in John Adams' legal career, but it is primarily a chronology of his practice in the courts. Accordingly, each term of the Inferior and Superior Courts at which he is known to have been active is listed, with all available information as to the number of his cases there, whether tried to a conclusion or not. Since the sources are somewhat fragmentary, the information given is necessarily incomplete and varies in its accuracy from term to term. The number of Adams' cases at each term variously appears as (1) the number of writs drawn by him; (2) the number of writs served; (3) the number of entries (cases which he entered on the court's docket); or (4) the number of actions (cases in which he was engaged as counsel at any stage). Adams' appearances in other courts of the Province have ordinarily been listed only when they occurred in cases printed in the present edition.

The title of each Superior Court action which he is known to have argued to the court or tried to a jury appears under the term at which it was argued or tried, with his client's name printed in italics and the result indicated. All cases in which a discontinuance or default was entered are included in this listing, because these procedural steps often concealed the argument and decision of a legal question. A few important cases from other courts have also been listed in this fashion. Those cases printed in the Legal Papers (Nos. 1–64) are listed in capital letters under the courts to which each document printed in those cases has been attributed, again with Adams' clients' names italicized. Primary sources for the chronology include the Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vols. 1–4; the Adams Family Correspondence , vols. 1–2; minute books and files of the several courts; and Adams' docket lists, Office Book, and other office documents in the Adams Papers. (The reader should, of course, realize that the court terms, although designated by months—e.g., “March Term”—were not always chronologically coterminous with the month in question. Thus, cases in the March Term might be heard in April, or even later.)

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.