Resources
Getting email into a production
The reference material behind EML Exhibit: how each format is produced and why it gets requested, the workflows small firms run without a litigation-support department, honest comparisons against the other ways to do this, and plain definitions of the vocabulary that shows up in a meet-and-confer letter.
33 pages, all free to read.
Conversions
What each format is, why it gets requested, and the exact steps to produce it.
Convert EML files to court-ready PDF
How to turn .eml email files into paginated PDF exhibits with the full header block intact, in batches, without sending client material to a service that keeps it.
Convert EML files to TIFF for production
Why opposing counsel asks for imaged TIFF rather than PDF, what DPI to produce at, and how to render a batch of .eml files to multi-page TIFF exhibits.
Convert EML to PDF and keep the attachments intact
What happens to email attachments during conversion, why flattening them into the PDF destroys their hash values, and how to keep the parent-child relationship straight.
Convert Outlook email to PDF for discovery
How to get messages out of Outlook as .eml files, why the desktop client saves .msg instead, and how to batch-convert the result into court-ready PDF exhibits.
Converting a PST archive to PDF exhibits
What a PST file holds, why it cannot be converted directly today, and the two practical routes from an Outlook archive to court-ready PDF exhibits.
Converting an MBOX archive to PDF exhibits
What an MBOX file is, why one archive holds thousands of messages, and how to split it into .eml files you can convert into court-ready PDF exhibits.
Converting Gmail messages to PDF for court
Downloading Gmail messages as .eml rather than printing them, why the print view makes a weak exhibit, and how to convert a Gmail batch into court-ready PDF.
Converting MSG files to PDF
What a .msg file is, why it is harder to work with than .eml, and the practical routes to a court-ready PDF today — including honest limits on what this tool supports.
Preparing email PDFs for Bates numbering
How to get a batch of emails into the shape a Bates numbering tool wants — consistent pagination, one combined PDF, predictable filenames — and where the stamp itself gets applied.
Producing email as TIFF images
What a production protocol means by imaged TIFF, how resolution and colour choices affect the delivery, and where email-specific problems show up in an imaged set.
Guides
Long-form walkthroughs of the email-evidence workflows that small firms run without a litigation-support department.
Email metadata and admissibility
What email headers actually prove, which parts are forgeable, and how metadata connects to authentication under the Federal Rules of Evidence.
How to Bates stamp emails
Bates numbering conventions for email productions — prefix formats, zero padding, where the stamp goes, attachment ranges, and the order operations have to run in.
How to export email as EML from any client
Step-by-step export routes for Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and webmail — and which clients give you .msg or .mbox instead, with what to do about it.
How to prepare email exhibits for trial
Turning produced email into exhibits a witness can be walked through — what one exhibit should contain, how threads are handled, and what the page has to show on its face.
How to produce emails in discovery
The end-to-end email production workflow for a firm without a litigation-support department — scope, collect, cull, review, number, format and deliver.
How to redact emails for production
What can and cannot be redacted from an email, why black rectangles in a PDF are not redaction, and how to redact defensibly without destroying the surrounding production.
Parent-child email productions explained
How an email and its attachments relate in a production, why the relationship has to be expressed explicitly, and how to handle attachments without destroying their integrity.
PDF vs TIFF productions: which, and when
When a production should be delivered as PDF and when imaged TIFF is genuinely required, what each format costs you, and how to settle it at meet-and-confer.
Comparisons
Honest side-by-side looks at the other ways to get email into a production, including where they beat us.
Acrobat and EML Exhibit are not alternatives
Acrobat stamps Bates numbers and EML Exhibit does not, so these tools sit at different steps. Where the manual Acrobat workflow costs time, and where it is the right answer.
eDiscovery platforms vs a conversion tool
Where a full review platform earns its cost and where it is overkill for a two-custodian matter — an honest look at what a conversion tool cannot do.
Free online converters, and where client email goes
What actually happens to a file you drop into a free web converter, why that is a confidentiality question before a technical one, and when free tools are fine.
Printing from Outlook vs converting
Print-to-PDF is free and already installed. Where it holds up for email exhibits, and the four specific ways it fails once a production is more than a handful of messages.
Glossary
Plain definitions of the production vocabulary that shows up in meet-and-confer letters.
Bates number
A Bates number is a unique sequential identifier stamped on every page of a document production so both sides can refer to any page unambiguously.
Chain of custody
Chain of custody is the documented record of who handled a piece of evidence, when, and what they did to it, from collection through production.
Custodian
In e-discovery a custodian is a person who holds or controls potentially responsive documents, and whose mailbox and files are the unit of collection.
Document production
A document production is the delivery of documents responsive to a discovery request, in an agreed format, numbered so both sides can refer to any page precisely.
Email metadata
Email metadata is the structured information carried with a message — headers, transport records and application fields — as distinct from the body a reader sees.
EML file
An EML file is a single email message saved as plain text in the standard internet message format, holding its headers, body and attachments in one file.
Load file
A load file is the index that tells a review platform how to ingest a production — which images belong to which document, in what order, and with what metadata.
MSG file
An MSG file is a single Outlook item saved in Microsoft's own binary container format, carrying message content plus Exchange properties that internet mail has no equivalent for.
Native production
A native production delivers documents in their original file format, preserving the working content and metadata that imaging strips away.
Privilege log
A privilege log lists the documents a party has withheld from production and states the basis for withholding each one, without disclosing the privileged content.
TIFF production
A TIFF production delivers documents as page images rather than native files, so the receiving party sees a fixed, inert rendering of every page.