What Is a Bates Stamp?
A Bates Stamp is a manual or automatic stamp which is used most often in the legal field to number or date sequential pages of documents for identification purposes. Bates stamping, or Bates numbering, are common terms used to describe this process.
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History
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The first Bates Stamp was invented in 1892 by the Bates Manufacturing Company in Orange, New Jersey. It was advertised as the first automatic numbering machine ever to be created. Thomas Edison purchased the company and began the mass production of Bates stamps.
Significance
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A Bates stamp is used to identify and distinguish pages of legal documents. Nearly all American law firms still use Bates stamps, though this technology is becoming increasingly rare due to the rise in electronic, rather than printed, material.
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Benefits
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By stamping the page number and/or date upon each page, the Bates stamp allows attorneys to keep track of materials, and helps anyone who later researches a case to easily find a specific document.
Expert Insight
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Some attorneys and legal discovery firms have been moving away from Bates numbering and are instead using "HASH" values to identify pages of legal documents.
Features
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The Bates automatic numbering machine is a self-inking stamp that contains a wheel with sequentially advancing numbers. Each time the handle is pressed, the machine advances to the next number.
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References
- Photo Credit document image by AGphotographer from Fotolia.com Rubber stamp image by Bartlomiej Nowak from Fotolia.com
