Exhibit Flow
Hours of non-billable work, done in seconds.
Tips for Preparing Exhibits for Filings and Depositions
📋 Exhibit Filing Checklist
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Descriptive Filenames (e.g., Ex. A Letter.pdf, not Ex. A.pdf)
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Text-Searchable (OCR) PDF Format
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Slipsheets on the First Page of Each Exhibit
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Paginated (ideally exhibit-specific, not Bates-reliant)
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Confidentiality Labels/Redactions (if needed)
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Exhibit List (Index) Appears Before Exhibits in the Filing
Naming Exhibits for Court Filings
✍️ Name Your Exhibits Descriptively
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"Ex. 1" is not helpful as it does not relay the content of each file. A clerk does not want to see a docket entry with 100 hyperlinks for Ex. 1.pdf through Ex. 100.pdf.
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Instead name your files so that the content of each is clear from the filename, e.g., "Ex. 1 Davis Declaration."
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Not only does this make review of the record easier, some courts require descriptive filenames (e.g., the Eastern District of Pennsylvania).
🚀 How Exhibit Flow Helps
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Exhibit Flow's File Renamer can rename your files and even automatically add prefixes (e.g., Ex. [Number/Letter] Automatically)
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Exhibit Flow's exhibit sticker, exhibit slipsheet, and exhibit list automated software tools can parse countless common filename patterns even if descriptors are added onto the filenames (Ex. A Memo.pdf, P001 Letter.pdf, Def.1 Complaint.pdf, PTX.55 - Smith Deposition.pdf, and so on).
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Exhibit Flow can even parse sub-exhibit names, so our software knows to an exhibit sticker reading Exhibit 1C to the file Ex. 1C Memo.pdf or a slipsheet reading Exhibit A.5 to Exhibit A.5 Contract.pdf.
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Finally, Exhibit Flow can even add exhibit-specific pagination for each file (e.g., so you can cite to Ex. A at p. 10 instead of a confusing Bates # that makes it hard for the court to find the page in the record (i.e., because SMITH_009932 does not tell the court where that page exists within Exhibit A).
File Upload Limits for Courts and File Formats
📤 Court Upload Limits:
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A single document upload limit is often in the range of 15mb-50 mb. This is usually more than enough to fit a single exhibit with ease.
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Even then a single transaction (e.g., a motion, brief, and attendant exhibits) may have its own limits. In the Southern District of New York, for example,. a single ECF transaction may not exceed 100.1 mb.
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For court-specific limits within the federal judiciary, click here.
What should you do if you exceed the total transaction size?
You should split your filing up into multiple transactions (e.g., filing Exhibits 1-50 first and then Exhibits 51-100 second).
🗂️ Filetypes: Federal courts and most state court e-filing systems accept .pdf file formats only. Courts typically expect evidence (e.g., audio) that cannot be put into .pdf format to be provided directly to chambers with courtesy copies provided to opposing counsel.
🚀 How Exhibit Flow Helps: Exhibit Flow streamlines the exhibit preparation experience, adding exhibit stickers or slipsheets, creating exhibit lists, and helping you make motion deadline day easy.
Minimize File Size and Keep PDFs Text Searchable
🚫 Avoid Scans: It it tempting to add exhibit stickers or slipsheets manually and then scan in the "completed" exhibit. Not only does this take forever and reduces fidelity, a scan can vastly increase your file size over a digital-only copy. Scanning also generally outputs a non-text-searchable file.
🖥️ Keep Exhibits Digital: A fully digital exhibit should be text-searchable, high resolution, and offer a compact file size. In fact, many courts now require that filing be text-searchable (OCR).
🚀 How Exhibit Flow Helps: Exhibit Flow's exhibit sticker and exhibit slipsheet tools will add digital exhibit labels and slipsheets to your PDFs automatically. This will keep your files high quality and will maintain any text-searchable (OCR) features in the original files while minimizing file size.
Prepare an Exhibit List for Your Filings or Trial
📄 Exhibit Lists for Motions: Complex motions can require courts to navigate a sea of exhibits. Make the courts job easy by filing an exhibit list providing a high level description of each exhibits.
🏛️ Exhibit Lists for Trial: Pre-trial memorandum rules often require that litigants provide a list of every exhibit they intend to introduce at trial. And even when not required, litigators need to be able to quickly determine the exhibit number for a given piece of evidence.
🚀 How Exhibit Flow Helps: Exhibit Flow's exhibit list creator can read your file names (e.g., Ex. 1 Complaint.pdf; Ex. 2 Answer.pdf) and instantly create a Word document listing each exhibit by filename descriptor. So before your file your summary judgment motion and pretrial memorandum, just feed Exhibit Flow your files and you'll have a ready-to-file exhibit list in seconds flat.