Templates
Exhibit admission tracker template
During trial the question is rarely what an exhibit says. It is whether it is in, when it went in, and on what terms. An admission tracker is the running answer, kept by one person at counsel table, one line at a time.
This template records each offer rather than each exhibit, because an exhibit can be offered twice and ruled on differently each time. It is the trial-day companion to the trial exhibit list you filed. The sample rows follow the first day of the fictional Smith v. Jones trial, and tracking exhibit status during trial explains the routine around it.
Admission tracker — Smith v. Jones, day 1
| Exhibit No. | Offered by | Witness | Time | Objection | Ruling | Admitted | Record cite | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | Plaintiff | D. Smith | 09:42 | None | Received | Yes | Tr. 1:58 | Admissibility stipulated before openings |
| 002 | Plaintiff | R. Jones | 10:15 | Foundation | Overruled | Yes | Tr. 1:96 | Signature identified on cross |
| 003 | Plaintiff | D. Smith | 11:02 | Authenticity | Sustained | No | Tr. 1:131 | Re-offer after phone records |
| 003 | Plaintiff | D. Smith | 11:48 | Renewed | Overruled | Yes | Tr. 1:152 | Second offer, foundation cured |
| 004 | Plaintiff | R. Jones | 13:20 | Hearsay | Overruled | Yes | Tr. 1:171 | Received for notice only |
| 006 | Plaintiff | D. Smith | 14:10 | Summary document | Reserved | No | Tr. 1:212 | Ruling deferred to day 2 |
| 007 | Plaintiff | K. Doyle | 15:05 | Qualification | Overruled | Yes | Tr. 1:240 | Expert sponsor accepted |
| A | Defendant | R. Jones | 16:12 | Completeness | Sustained | No | Tr. 1:268 | Withdrawn, to be re-offered day 2 |
One row per offer. Exhibit 003 appears twice because it was offered twice, and both rows matter: the first records why it failed, the second records what fixed it. Write the ruling in the words the judge used rather than a tick, because Reserved, Received for a limited purpose and Sustained without prejudice are three different situations you will need to explain later. Fill the Record cite column while the page number is still on the screen in front of the reporter.
How to fill it in
Give the sheet to one person and let them keep it for the whole trial. Shared custody produces gaps exactly where the argument was busiest. The keeper writes the time first, the ruling second, and the note last, during the next question.
Record limited-purpose admissions in the Notes column with the limit spelled out, since a document received for notice and a document received for its truth behave very differently in closing. When a ruling is deferred, leave Admitted as No and diary the exhibit for the next morning rather than trusting anyone to remember it.
At the end of each day, read the sheet against the clerk's record and reconcile any difference the same afternoon. The terminology is worth being precise about: see marked exhibit and admitted exhibit.
Adapting it to your court
In most courtrooms the clerk keeps the official exhibit log, and your tracker is a working copy that has to agree with it. Ask early how the clerk records admission and at what point an exhibit is treated as received.
Columns teams add depending on practice: a limited-purpose column instead of a note; a conditional admission column where a document is received subject to later connection; a column for whether the exhibit goes to the jury room, which is often decided separately from admission; a published-to-jury column where display to the jury is controlled; and a column for exhibits used only to refresh recollection, which are typically not received at all.
The mechanics of offering, the words used and what reaches the jury vary by court and jurisdiction. Write down how your courtroom does it on day one and keep the sheet consistent with that, rather than with the way the last trial ran.
Using it with Exhibit Room
The app carries a status on each exhibit: Not offered, Offered, Admitted, Rejected or Illustrative. The status is shown as text beside the exhibit, not as a color alone, and it is changed from the exhibit's context menu, which takes a couple of seconds during a natural break. Exhibit 003 in the sample would sit at Offered after 11:02 and move to Admitted at 11:48.
That status is a working record for the team, not an official one. The clerk's log governs, and the Reserved ruling on exhibit 006 has no matching status in the app, which is a good reason to keep both records. Exhibit status tracking describes the behavior in full.
At the end of the day, export the trial to a single .exhibitroom file so the statuses, PDFs and annotations are captured as they stood, and keep the tracker CSV beside it. Exhibit Room does not produce a printed admission report, so the spreadsheet is what you hand to a colleague or read from in closing.
Track offered and admitted exhibits during trial
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