Bates Stamping+
High-Volume Bates Numbering of Electronic Documents

Lexbe offers Bates Stamping+, an eDiscovery service to Bates Stamp or number electronic documents in connection with litigation productions and document reviews. This service is available for electronic documents in the form of PDFs or TIFF images.  We also offer a related service to convert Outlook (or other email formats) and attachments into flattened PDFs or TIFFs, which can then be Bates stamped on each page. 

Below you can find details on Bates Stamping PDF+, including why it is needed, the key benefits and features, how to get additional information and a price quote for our service, and getting started.  If you have any questions, feel free to call (800-401-7809 x22) or email us at   

Bates Stamping Need in Discovery Practice
Bates stamping (aka Bates coding, numbering and embossing) is a lawyer's convention used in litigation to uniquely identify pages of discovery documents. Bates numbers are usually placed on the lower right portion of each page of a document, in the form of a leading alphabetic identifier followed by sequential numbers from four to six digits, including leading zeros. An example would be MPW 00576. Bates numbering allows attorneys to specifically identify pages prior to trial in depositions and for legal motions. Once a case goes to trial, exhibit numbering is usually used instead of Bates numbering.

'Bates' refers to a device patented as  'The Bates Automatic Numbering Machine' in the 1890s. This device was used in various forms until the advent of computer-generated Bates numbering and stamps in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bates machine would automatically increment by one number with each stamp and allowed for a fixed number of leading alphabetic identifiers. With the adoption of word-processors and computers, the Bates stampers were replaced with printable labels for hard-copy documents and with electronic stamping of documents in the form of electronic files.

Bates numbering is usually applied only to documents scanned to PDF or TIFF formats, or electronic files that are converted form their original format to PDF  or TIF format.  In the past, Bates numbering was sometimes applied to Microsoft Word, Excel and other documents in native format to a footer in the documents, but is not considered a best practice today by most lawyers as the process of  writing a Bates number to the footer in a document changes an electronic document's metadata and potentially other information in the the document.

 Key Benefits & Features of Bates Stamping+ Service
Lexbe eDiscovery's Bates Stamp+ offers high-volume electronic stamping of documents in PDF or TIFF formats.  We can also convert Microsoft Word, Excel and other native file formats to PDF or PDF prior to Bates stamping with our Native PDF+ and Native TIFF+ services.  If Outlook MSGs, PSTs or other email needs to be Bates numbered, we can convert email and attachments to PDF prior to Bates stamping with our Outlook PDF+ service.

Benefits of our Bates Stamping+ service include:

• Stamping of large volumes of documents quickly and cost-effectively.
• Flexibility in naming conventions for stamping.
• 'Confidential' and 'Attorney's Eyes Only' stamps as needed to protect trade secrets and implement confidentiality orders.
• A chain of custody spreadsheet is available for tracking and authentication.
• Email metadata including custodian, sender, receiver, date, time, etc. can be extracted from email to be Bates stamped and linked to individual emails and Bates numbers for further analysis.
• Operation in a high-security environment.

Additional Information and Price Quotes
If you would like additional information or a price quote, please click here, or call us at (800-401-7809 x22) or email us at  . Pricing for our electronic Bates stamping service is available per GB for price predictability.

 Low Price Guarantee
We feel so confident about the operating efficiencies of our proprietary electronic document stored image (ESI) processing architecture and the value of our eDiscovery services, that we can offer a low-price guarantee.  more    

Getting Started
You send us the electronic files you wish us to process.  You can send CDs, DVDs, flash or portable drives to us.  Or upload the files directly to our secure FTP server for quicker service.  

All services described on this and related pages are subject to Lexbe's Digitization Services Agreement.