Build a Filing-Ready Court Packet in One PDF

A court packet is the complete set of papers you file or serve together: the main document (a motion, brief, or declaration), the exhibits that support it, and the pages that tie them together, such as an index of exhibits, slip sheets that announce each exhibit, a table of contents, and a proof of service. Most e-filing systems want this as one searchable PDF, or as a main document plus attachments, with every exhibit identifiable on sight.

Add your main filing and your exhibit files to the builder on this page, put the exhibits in order, choose a labeling scheme (Exhibit A, B, C or Exhibit 1, 2, 3), and click build. The builder places a slip sheet before each exhibit, adds an index of exhibits and a table of contents, stamps a Bates number and a page number on every page, adds bookmarks, strips hidden metadata, and downloads one combined PDF. Images such as photos and screenshots become full pages automatically.

No. Every file is read, combined, stamped, and saved inside your browser tab on your own device. Nothing is sent to our servers or to anyone else, which matters because exhibits routinely contain medical records, financial statements, and material under a protective order. We ask for an email address before the download; your documents themselves are never transmitted.

A slip sheet (also called an exhibit cover page or exhibit tab page) is a single page placed in front of an exhibit that identifies it, for example EXHIBIT A, often with a short description. In a combined PDF it does the job a physical tab does in a paper binder. Some federal courts specifically say separator pages must identify the exhibit rather than be blank, which is how the builder makes them.

Either is accepted in most courts, and many follow a convention where the plaintiff uses numbers and the defendant uses letters so the two sets never collide at trial. Choose the designation (Exhibit, Plaintiff's Exhibit, Defendant's Exhibit, Joint Exhibit) and the builder picks the matching convention, which you can override. If your court, a scheduling order, or a pretrial order prescribes a scheme, follow it. You can also start from any letter or number to continue an earlier set.

One line per exhibit with its label, a short neutral description, and where it sits in the packet. The builder adds the packet page range and, when Bates numbering is on, the Bates range of every exhibit, and each line is a clickable link to the exhibit. Several courts require the index to come first among the attachments or to be hyperlinked to the exhibits; the builder places it immediately before the first exhibit.

If your filing has bookmarks (most word processors create them from heading styles when you export to PDF), the builder reads them and converts each heading's page to its packet page and Bates number. If there are no bookmarks, it reads the text and suggests likely headings such as INTRODUCTION, ARGUMENT, and lettered subheadings for you to check. A scanned filing has no text, so you type the headings in. Every list is editable before you build.

Yes. Many briefs must keep the caption or cover page on top, with the tables after it. Tick the option to place the table of contents after the filing's first page and every page reference in the packet updates to match.

For exhibit-heavy filings it is the cleanest way to cite a specific page, and some agencies and courts recommend Bates numbering the combined exhibit set. The builder numbers every page of the packet in one sequence, with your prefix and zero padding, and prints the Bates range for each exhibit in the index. If your court only wants Bates numbers on discovery productions, turn it off and keep plain page numbers.

Yes. Turn on the proof of service and fill in who was served, how, and when. The page uses the same declaration wording as our proof of service generator and lists the filing and its exhibits as the documents served. Print it, sign it after service actually happens, and check whether your court requires its own mandatory form instead.

It can. Courts that require PDF/A (common for archival e-filing) get a PDF/A-2b file built with our PDF/A converter, which embeds fonts and writes the archival metadata, then re-checks the result. If a source exhibit uses something that cannot be fixed in the browser, you still get a standard PDF and the page tells you which problem stopped the conversion.

The builder handles files up to 100 MB each, but courts set their own limits, often somewhere around 25 to 50 MB per PDF, and some require you to split large exhibit sets into separate attachments. Check your e-filing system's limit before you build; if the packet is too large, build the exhibits in two volumes with the second starting where the first left off.