• Electronic Evidence Processing
• Document Scanning/OCR
  • Color Imaging
  • Oversized Imaging
  • OCR
  • CD-ROM Production
  • Blowbacks
  • Bates Labeling
• Document Coding
• Web-Based Document Repositories
• Administrative Record Preparation
• Software Sales and Training
• Deposition Summaries
• MCLE Seminars
• White Papers

What is "Bates" labeling?

Documents used in litigation are assigned unique identifiers (IDs). Historically, the process was done with a "Bates" brand stamper, so these numbers are often called Bates numbers. Today the numbers may be applied as printed labels or assigned during scanning. The numbers are used to access scanned images and to link to a database where they may serve as record identifiers.

Why Bates label?

Bates labels help litigators organize, track, and recall documents in a case, page by page. The identifying numbers may have an alphabetic prefix that represents some information such as the document source. Or a numeric box-number might be part of the identifier. The last part of the identifier should be a constant number of digits so that the pages are sequentially numbered, at least within a prefixed set. If pages need to be inserted within a sequential range, suffixes may be used.

How is it done?

It used to be necessary to physically stamp the pages or label them one by one. Today it's possible to assign IDs during document scanning. These IDs become part of the index to the TIFF (image) files for each page. Or these IDs may be added to the image or "branded," making the TIFF file slightly longer than the original. In this way, no part of an image is obscured by the unique ID. If you choose not to "brand," documents which are later printed out or "blown back" can appear with or without the IDs.

D-M can Bates stamp or label pages by hand, or we can assign IDs during the scanning process. If you would like more information about Bates labeling, please contact us at info@dminfo.com , or call 1-800-653-2112.