Leveraging Filenames to Automate Exhibit Prep

Every litigator and paralegal knows the particular circle of hell reserved for exhibit preparation. The process is notorious for being manual, repetitive, and prone to error. You have hundreds of documents that need exhibit stickers, slip sheets for motions, and structured bookmarks if you are preparing an appellate appendix.

Usually, this involves opening a file, typing the exhibit number into a stamping tool, closing it, opening a Word doc to create a slip sheet, typing the same information again, and eventually manually building bookmarks in Adobe Acrobat.

But what if the key to automating this entire assembly line was right in front of you? It’s your filename.

Filenames as Data

A filename shouldn't just be a label; it should be structured data. A file named scan_2023_05_12_final_v3.pdf is useless for automation. It tells software nothing.

However, a standardized filename like EX.001 2023 Sales Contract.pdf is a goldmine. It contains distinct pieces of data that software can parse: the exhibit prefix, the numbering sequence, and the descriptive title.

When your files are named consistently, you stop manually re-entering data. You can use software that "reads" the filename and automatically applies that information to downstream tasks.

The First Step: Clean Data with Exhibit Flow

The biggest barrier to file-based automation is that receiving perfectly named files from clients is a fantasy. You usually get a disorganized dump of documents.

Renaming hundreds of files manually to match a standard convention is a pain. This is where Exhibit Flow’s file tagger feature becomes essential in the first instance.

Before you even think about stamping, use Exhibit Flow to standardize your filenames. The file tagger allows you to rapidly organize and batch-rename documents according to a set schema (e.g., [Exhibit Prefix] [Number]_[Description]). It turns tedium into structured data in minutes, ensuring every file is ready for the automation pipeline. Further, Exhibit Flow can parse a wide ray of filenames, giving you plenty of options. Finally, courts are increasingly requiring descriptive file names for docket entires, meaning you should be renaming them to a set pattern regardless.

The Automation Payoff

Once Exhibit Flow has standardized your filenames, the rest of the exhibit production process can be quickly executed:

1. Automated Exhibit Stickers: Exhibit Flow's advanced exhibit sticker tool can be configured to pull the exhibit number directly from the beginning of the filename. The software reads Ex. 001 Letter.pdf, generates a digital sticker reflecting that exhibit number, and places it on the document without you typing a single character (and then processes the rest of your files via a one-click workflow).

2. Instant Slip Sheets: If you need divider pages for a motion or a binder, our slipsheet automation tool can read the your filename in the same way to generate numbered/lettered slipsheets for each of your files automatically..

3. Perfect PDF Bookmarks: When combining documents into an appellate appendix , creating bookmarks is key to appellate review. Instead of manually creating bookmarks for dozens of files, our software reviews your filenames and creates bookmarks for each entry in the appendix as well as a a Table of Contents showing the name of each appendix entry and its page range.

   
   

Stop treating your filenames as an afterthought. By using Exhibit Flow to standardize them first, you turn your document list into the engine that drives your entire production workflow. Exhibit Flow is the easiest way to make exhibit prep faster!