Templates
Trial preparation checklist template
Most of what goes wrong with exhibits in the last fortnight is not hard. It is a set of small tasks that each take ten minutes and are easy to assume somebody else has done. A written checklist with an owner against each line removes that assumption.
This template covers the exhibit side of trial preparation: deadlines, document quality, sponsors, copies and backups. It pairs with the week-by-week trial exhibit prep timeline, which says when each item should happen, and with the courtroom technology checklist, which covers the hardware. The worked notes use the fictional Smith v. Jones matter.
Trial preparation sheet — Smith v. Jones, trial set for April 2026
| Item | Done / notes |
|---|---|
| Confirm trial date and every exhibit deadline in the pretrial order | Done - exchange due 14 days before trial |
| Freeze the exhibit list and close numbering | Pending - 008 may be split into two exhibits |
| Match every exhibit number to one final PDF | Done - 8 of 8 imported |
| Name a sponsoring witness for each exhibit | Pending - sponsor for 006 ledger undecided |
| Exchange exhibits and log the objections served | Due 2026-04-03 |
| Order bench, witness, clerk and opposing copies | Binder 1 done, binder 2 at the copy shop |
| Walk each witness outline against the exhibit order | Scheduled with D. Smith on 2026-04-08 |
| Test the presenting laptop in a room the size of the courtroom | Not started |
| Export a trial backup to a second drive | Repeat every evening once trial starts |
Two columns are enough. Resist adding an owner column and a due date column to a sheet this short; put the owner's initials in front of the note instead. The value is in reading the whole thing in one minute, out loud, at the Monday meeting. Anything still blank at the last meeting before trial is either genuinely done or genuinely a problem, and the sheet makes you say which.
Longer exhibit preparation checklist
- Re-read the pretrial order and the judge's standing order in the week before trial.
- Calendar every exhibit deadline: exchange, objections, deposition designations and demonstratives.
- Reconcile the exhibit list against the production and confirm each Bates range covers the whole document.
- Remove duplicates, superseded drafts and documents you have decided not to use.
- Replace any scan that is crooked, cropped, or unreadable at one hundred percent zoom.
- Confirm one final PDF per exhibit number, with no exhibit split across two files.
- Write a one-line description for each exhibit that you would be comfortable reading aloud.
- Assign a sponsoring witness and a fallback sponsor to every exhibit.
- Flag the exhibits you expect to be contested, with the likely objection and your response.
- Prepare highlights and callouts in advance and note the page number of each key passage.
- Print bench, witness, clerk and opposing copies, then count them twice.
- Pack a printed copy of the exhibit list, the adapters you tested, and a charged laptop.
- Export a trial backup to a second drive and confirm it opens on the second computer.
- Agree who records offered and admitted rulings during trial and who reconciles with the clerk.
How to fill it in
Work through it in the order the tasks depend on each other. The list cannot be frozen until duplicates are out; sponsors cannot be assigned until the list is frozen; copies cannot be ordered until the PDFs are final. Jumping ahead produces rework, which is the one thing there is no time for in the last week.
Use the notes column for facts rather than adjectives. Binder 2 at the copy shop, back Thursday tells you something. In progress does not.
Keep a single copy of the sheet. A checklist that exists in three inboxes is three different checklists. How to prepare exhibits for trial covers the substantive work behind these lines in more depth.
Adapting it to your court
Add lines for whatever your pretrial order imposes. Common additions include a meet-and-confer on exhibit objections, a joint exhibit list filed by a stated date, deposition designation and counter-designation exchanges, notice for demonstratives, and a deadline for any motion in limine that affects an exhibit.
If the courthouse allows a technology walkthrough, that is worth its own line with a named contact and a time, because slots go early. Where exhibits are filed electronically, add a line for the filing format the clerk accepts and one for the naming convention, since those are often specified precisely.
Deadlines, formats and exchange mechanics vary by court and by jurisdiction. This template deliberately states none of them as a requirement. Read your own order and write its dates into the notes column.
Using it with Exhibit Room
Four lines on the sheet map directly onto work in the app. Importing the final PDFs, one per exhibit, by drag and drop or the file picker. Preparing highlights, callouts and arrows in advance, which are stored separately so the original PDF is never modified. Rehearsing in presentation mode with the keyboard you will actually use. And the evening backup, which exports the trial, its PDFs and its annotations to a single .exhibitroom file you can carry to a second computer; a license covers two computers, so the spare machine can be a working spare.
One caution for the copies line: the visual redaction tool draws a black box over the page for presentation only and does not remove the underlying content from the PDF file, so it is not a way to prepare a redacted production copy. How to redact a PDF sets out what that means in practice.
Nothing in the app prints a checklist. Keep this one in the spreadsheet, on paper, or both.
Get your exhibits ready before trial week
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