Deposition Exhibits: Marking, Numbering, and Producing Them in the Remote Era

Deposition exhibits are their own animal. They're marked live, often in the moment, and they have to survive the trip from the deposition room (or the Zoom session) into the trial record without losing their identity. Get the numbering scheme right and your trial prep is half done; get it wrong and you spend the months between deposition and trial untangling which Ex. 3 the witness was actually looking at.

What a deposition exhibit is

A deposition exhibit is a document marked and entered during a deposition under FRCP 30. It typically has a single exhibit sticker on the first page, may carry Bates numbers from the underlying production, and is referenced by number in the transcript. The court reporter is the official custodian until the transcript is produced.

Deposition exhibits are different from trial exhibits in two ways: (1) they're typically letter-tagged with the deponent's name ("Smith Ex. 3") rather than a single trial sequence, and (2) the exhibit number doesn't carry into trial — at trial, the same document gets a new trial exhibit number, although the deposition designation remains in the transcript citation.

Numbering conventions

Per-deponent sequence

The traditional convention. Each deponent gets their own numeric sequence: "Smith Ex. 1, Smith Ex. 2…" with the deponent's name and date stamped on each. The exhibits are tied to that witness's testimony.

Trade-off: in cases with many depositions, you end up with five different "Ex. 3" documents — one per deponent — and at trial you have to disambiguate every reference.

Continuous sequence across all depositions

Increasingly common in complex federal cases. A single sequence runs across every deposition in the case: Smith's deposition uses Ex. 1–35, Jones's uses Ex. 36–58, etc. Each exhibit has a single, unique identifier from first deposition to trial.

Trade-off: the convention has to be agreed by the parties up front, and the spreadsheet of who-marked-what gets long. But it eliminates the "which Ex. 3" problem at trial.

Pre-marking

Many federal districts allow or require pre-marking — the exhibits get stickers applied before the deposition begins, in the order counsel expects to use them. The court reporter receives the pre-marked set with an exhibit list, and the sticker is on the page when the witness sees it.

• Why pre-mark: deposition pace doesn't pause for sticker application. Pre-marking eliminates the awkward silence while a sticker is applied and the next question is framed.
• The risk: you might decide mid-deposition not to use Ex. 7. Now Ex. 7 is missing from the entered exhibits but the sticker is still on the document. Convention varies — some firms re-mark in real-time, others note the gap on the exhibit list.
• The compromise: pre-mark the documents you're definitely using, mark on-the-fly for documents you might use, end with a clean sequence.

Remote and Zoom depositions

Remote depositions are the post-2020 default. The mechanics of exhibit-marking change in three real ways:

• Digital-only stamping. No physical sticker applied to a paper page. The exhibit is a PDF with the sticker burned in, shared via screen-share or a remote-deposition platform (Veritext Vault, Stenograph CaseViewNet, etc.).
• Pre-marking is the norm. You can't apply a sticker to a PDF live during testimony as smoothly as you can apply a paper sticker. Most teams pre-mark every potential exhibit and have the platform pull up Ex. N when needed.
• Witness can't see the back of the page. If your court's convention is back-of-photo sticker placement (D. Ariz.), that doesn't translate to remote — adapt to a front-page sticker with a clear caption.

What to send to the court reporter

• The pre-marked PDF set, exhibits in deposition order.
• An exhibit list with each exhibit's number, date, deponent, and a short description.
• If applicable, the protective order's confidentiality endorsement applied to every protected exhibit.

How Stampify handles deposition exhibits

Stampify's deposition mode applies the deponent name and date to each sticker, generates the exhibit list, and outputs either individual stamped PDFs or a single combined deposition exhibit binder. Configurable as per-deponent sequence (Smith Ex. 1, Smith Ex. 2…) or continuous case-wide sequence depending on your convention.

See also: Bates Numbering vs. Exhibit Stamping and trial exhibit preparation for what comes after the deposition.