The mechanism -- an improvement patented by Edwin G. Bates in 1891 -- automatically changed the number, making quick work for staff. The Bates numbering machine helped organize and manage business paperwork. Office workers used it to stamp consecutive numbers or numbers in a repeated pattern onto pages of documents.

Bates Numbers typically have a prefix or suffix. For example, a paralegal might label the first page of Mr. Smith's case file with 0001/SMI. The first part of the series tracks the page number, while the second element remains constant and represents the client's last name.

The short answer is no - legal professionals still use bates numbering - but documents and discoverable information have become overwhelmingly electronic. One thing to keep in mind is that native document productions usually can not include a physical bates stamp without first being imaged.

For example, if XYZ company produces 25,000 pages to an opponent, it may Bates number the production "XYZ_000001 - XYZ_025000." Some lawyers refer to Bates numbers as Bates stamps because at one time the numbers were physically stamped on each page.

It gained its name from the Bates Automatic Numbering-Machine, patented in the 1890s by Edwin G. Bates. This sequential-numbering stamp was used to manually mark each page in a record.

Bates numbering is a method of indexing legal documents for easy identification and retrieval. Each page of each document is assigned a unique Bates number that also indicates its relationship to other Bates-numbered documents. Bates numbers appear as headers or footers on the pages of each PDF in the batch.

Bates stamping is the process of applying a set of identifying numbers to a document collection of PDFs to label and identify them. You can use DocPreviewer to apply a Bates stamp to documents — even if you don't import them into a case spreadsheet.