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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.

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.

Definition: A Bates number is a unique number that is added to a document or its pages to identify it. It is named after the machine made by the Bates Manufacturing Company that stamps the number. Bates numbers are commonly used to identify documents during legal proceedings.

Bates numbering has been used for well over a century. 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, which is a system of sequentially numbering pages in files, is a well-known solution to this problem in the legal industry. By giving pages unique identifiers, Bates numbering makes it easier for all parties to search and reference legal documents.

Bates Numbers are added to PDF files in the header and footer to identify pages. These numbers will often go in ascending order, meaning each consecutive page will automatically have a larger number on it. Bates Numbers can be paired with text or other objects in the document where they may appear.

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.