On 24 March 1772, due to his growing reputation and with the aid of his wife’s uncle John Cruger, Jr. (Speaker of the New York Assembly), Peter Van Schaack was appointed to collect, revise, and digest the laws of the Colony of New York from 1691 to 1773. Peter needed to search in the Council Books and Journals of the General Assembly in order to determine which Acts had received royal assent, which were repealed, and which remained probationary. He was instructed to place the Acts in order, to divide them into chapters and sections, to provide notations in the margins as to the status of the Acts, and to make an index and table of all the principal matters in the Acts. Once completed to the satisfaction of designated government officials, Peter would be paid 250 pounds. Laws of New-York, From The Year 1691, to 1773 inclusive was published in 1774. At 836 pages with an index of 53 pages, it was considered an indispensable work by practicing lawyers in New York and helped Van Schaack develop a reputation as an authority on New York law.