Trial Exhibit Tabs: Numbering, Sets, and Court-Ready Binders

There is no single national rule — numbering is set by your court's local rules, the judge's standing orders, or the pretrial order. The common patterns:

• Numbers for one side, letters for the other (e.g., plaintiff 1–99, defense A–Z) so ranges never collide
• Straight numbers for everyone, with party prefixes — PX-1, DX-1, JX-1 for joint exhibits
• Sequential numbering that continues across volumes — volume two starts at Exhibit 101, not back at 1
• Deposition exhibits often keep their original numbers at trial to avoid re-marking

Plan for more identical sets than the binder in front of you: the judge, the witness stand, the clerk, opposing counsel, and your own trial table each typically get one, and appellate practice rewards a clean spare. Six identical, collated sets of Exhibits 1–100 is a routine order, not an unusual one.

Ordering all sets at once — printed, collated, and boxed in order — is dramatically faster than assembling them by hand from stock tab packs, and every set matches exactly.

Trial binders get flipped hard, repeatedly, for days. Mylar-reinforced tab edges and reinforced binding holes are the difference between a binder that survives trial and one that sheds tabs by day two. For binders that live on after trial — closing sets, appellate records — .015 poly tabs add a wipe-clean, tear-proof upgrade.

Office-supply stock tabs come pre-printed in fixed ranges — fine for a 25-exhibit motion, painful for Exhibit 347. Custom-printed exhibit tabs are made to your exact range and style (numbered ranges to 1–500 online, A–Z and AA–ZZ, Roman numerals, or your party prefixes), collated in order, with a free PDF proof before anything prints.

Tabzoola prints exhibit tab sets in the USA in about 5 production days, with rush options when the pretrial order says sooner. Design the set once in the online designer, and reordering the same spec for the next matter takes minutes.