Bates numbering a bundle without uploading it

Every free Bates stamper on the first page of results asks you to upload the PDF. For a disclosure bundle that is the one thing you cannot do: it is frequently privileged, usually unfiled, often under a protective order, and handing it to a website is itself a disclosure to whoever runs the website. EXHIBIT builds the binder in the browser instead — an index whose entries link to each exhibit, an exhibit sticker on the first page of each item, and a Bates number stamped into the margin of every page. Nothing is uploaded. What it will not do is know your court's rules, and the page says so.

What a Bates number is, and why it is not a page number

A Bates number is a unique, sequential identifier stamped on every page, usually a short prefix and a zero-padded number: DOE-000142. A page number tells you where you are in a document. A Bates number tells you which page it is, for good, across every copy anybody holds.

That is the whole point. A bundle gets re-sectioned, an exhibit is withdrawn, a supplemental disclosure is inserted in the middle — and the page numbers all move. The Bates numbers do not, so a reference written in a witness statement in March still lands on the same words in November.

Getting the prefix and the padding right

• The prefix identifies who produced it. Party initials, a short case tag, or both: DOE-, ACME-, D1-. What matters is that a number from one side can never be confused with a number from the other.
• Pad to a fixed width, and pad generously. DOE-000142, not DOE-142. Almost everything sorts these as text, and as text DOE-42 comes before DOE-7. Six digits costs nothing and covers a bundle you did not expect to grow.
• Never restart. One continuous run across the whole production, including exhibits added later. Two pages carrying the same number is the failure this exists to prevent.
• Agree it before anybody starts. Prefix, start number, width, and who numbers what. Renumbering after exchange means every reference in every document already served is wrong, and that is an expensive afternoon.

What comes out

Two files in, a binder out. This is the real output, read back out of the PDF's own content streams rather than off the screen:

Four pages in total: an index page, then three numbered pages. The index carries the case name, the case number and the party, and each entry is a link that jumps to its exhibit. Each item gets EXHIBIT A, EXHIBIT B stamped on its first page, and every page carries its Bates number. Each file's SHA-256 is shown as it is staged, so you can record which copy of a document went into the bundle.

Why the upload matters here more than usual

This site says "nothing is uploaded" on every page and most of the time it is a preference. Here it is not.

A bundle in preparation is material you have an obligation to control. It may contain privileged communications you are about to withhold, third-party personal data, or documents under an order restricting who may see them. Handing that to a web service means it now exists on somebody else's disk under somebody else's terms, and those terms frequently include a licence to process and store what you send. Whether that creates a problem is a question for the rules that apply to you — and it is a question you do not have to ask if the file never leaves the machine.

Before the bundle goes anywhere

1. Check what the documents carry. A bundle assembled from Word exports brings author names, the minutes each document was open for, comments and tracked changes with it. What is hidden in a Word document goes through the fields; X-RAY reads them out of a file.
2. Check the redactions are redactions. A black rectangle drawn over text leaves the text in the file. Can text under a PDF redaction be recovered covers what survives and how to tell.
3. Check what an appended save still holds. A PDF saved incrementally keeps its earlier versions. STRATA recovers them, which is worth doing to your own bundle before somebody else does it.
4. Record what you sent. CHECKSUM hashes the finished binder, so the copy you served can be shown later to be the copy you built.

What this does not do

It does not know your court's rules, and no tool does. Numbering styles, sticker placement, index format, whether the index is paginated with the bundle or separately, whether exhibits are lettered or numbered: these vary by jurisdiction, by court and sometimes by judge, and the practice direction that applies to you is the authority. EXHIBIT gives you a clean, consistently numbered, indexed binder. Checking it against the rules is yours, and so is reading it before it goes.

This is a description of how a tool works and of conventions that are widely used. It is not legal advice, and where a rule and this page disagree, the rule is right.

Alongside: BUNDLE is the same idea for a sectioned court bundle with divider pages, and DOCKET builds a disclosure schedule from a folder with each file's hash beside it.