We present a technique to identify spectrophotometrically variable L7-T3 brown dwarfs with single-epoch, low-resolution, near-infrared SpeX spectra. We calculated spectral indices on known variable brown dwarfs and used them to select 11 index-index parameter spaces where known variables can be distinguished from the rest of the general population of brown dwarfs. We find 62 candidate variables, 12 of which show significant variability amplitude in independent photometric monitoring surveys. This technique constitutes the first formal method to identify a time-dependent effect such as variability from peculiarities in their integrated light spectra. This technique will be a useful tool to prioritize targets for future photometric and spectroscopic monitoring in the era of the James Webb Space Telescope and 30m-class telescopes.

Cone search capability for table J/ApJ/934/178/table1 (Confirmed variability sources used as benchmarks in our study)

Cone search capability for table J/ApJ/934/178/table4 (Variability candidates with spectral types between L7-T3)

Cone search capability for table J/ApJ/934/178/tablea1 (Complete spectral run through each index-index correlation)

Cone search capability for table J/ApJ/934/178/tablea2 (L7-T3 dwarf spectral binary candidates from our index-selection technique)