Exhibits for Motion Hearings

Preparing and Filing Exhibits for Motion Hearings

**This article DOES NOT apply to exhibits for an actual trial or evidentiary hearing. See Exhibits & Exhibit Lists for Trial/Evidentiary Hearings – K|H Law Wiki (theintervenors.com)**

Affidavits with Exhibits

When preparing an affidavit for a motion hearing (temp relief, post-diss, any type) oftentimes, you will reference exhibits throughout your affidavit to support your facts. These exhibits often include court orders, financial documents, text messages, emails, and photos. These exhibits are not like exhibits for a trial that are considered “proposed exhibits” and need to be formally introduced to the Court and accepted by the Judge. These exhibits are automatically accepted as part of the record when filed with the affidavit. (Rule 303.03 Motion Practice)

Tips for Preparing Exhibits

• Reference within Affidavit: Exhibits should always be referenced in the affidavit so the Court knows why they are looking at that exhibit.
• Page Numbers / Bate Stamps: If the Exhibit is multiple pages long, bate stamp or number the pages so you can more specifically reference it in your affidavit. Keep in mind that you may need to shrink the image so that the bates or page numbers show.
• Redaction: Exhibits will need to be redacted if they contain confidential information like account numbers, social security numbers, ID numbers. Remember to leave the last 4 digits for account numbers. ALWAYS REDACT BEFORE LABELING WITH EXHIBIT NUMBERS.
  • If in doubt, redact. If you don’t redact something that should have been, it will be rejected by the Court.
• Exhibit Numbers: Label with Exhibit Numbers (not letters). If it is our motion, you can start with Exhibit 1. If we are responding to OPA’s exhibit, make sure you Exhibit numbers start AFTER OPA’s last exhibit number. For instance, if OPA had Exhibits 1-6 with their affidavit, we wouldn’t want to start ours at Exhibit 1 and instead should start at something like Exhibit 10.
  • Adobe does not come standard with an Exhibit Stamp. You will have to add it. See Adding Exhibit Stamp to Adobe – K|H Law Wiki (theintervenors.com)
• Size: Be cautious of the size of documents. Odyssey can only accept documents under 25mb. Your entire envelope (everything you are filing at the same time) cannot be bigger than 35mb.
  • If you have a lot of large exhibits, try using “Reduce File Size” in adobe to make the document size smaller. Sometimes this could affect your document quality or mess with things so make sure your document still looks okay after you do it. See: Adobe – Reducing the Size of a PDF – K|H Law Wiki
• Text Messages: If you are submitting text messages as exhibits, ensure that you only submit text messages that are necessary and are to the point. The Court will not want to read through dozens of pages of text messages that aren’t applicable. Also, make sure your text messages are in chronological order so the Court can easily read them.
• Photos: If you are submitting multiple photos, combine them on one page. The court doesn’t need full size pictures of everything and, again, it will just cause the Judge to have to do more scrolling which they won’t like.
• Confidential Exhibits: If any of your exhibits are confidential (financial, mental health, chemical dependency) you will need to draft a Conf Info Cover Sheet to be filed. For more info see: Confidential Documents & Cover Sheet for Non-Public Documents 11.2 – K|H Law Wiki (theintervenors.com)
• Attaching exhibits to Affidavit: We advise against attaching your exhibits to your affidavit. It increases the possibility of the filing being rejected and we never want our affidavit to be rejected.
• Combing all the exhibits into one document: We advise against combining all your exhibits to make one monster exhibit document. If you do that and even one page has something that wasn’t redacted properly, the whole combined document will be rejected.
  • The only exception to this is Confidential Documents because they are confidential and will not be rejected. For more information on how to handle confidential exhibits see Confidential Documents & Cover Sheet for Non-Public Documents 11.2 – K|H Law Wiki (theintervenors.com)
  • When you file your combined confidential exhibits, indicate what they are in the filing description. For example, ” Confidential Exhibits 1, 2, and 6 for Petitioner’s Affidavit.”

Where will the exhibits be filed or how does Court get them?

Not MNDES. Never MNDES. MNDES is only to be used for an actual trial or evidentiary hearing, unless specifically instructed otherwise by the Court.

• For regular exhibits (not confidential exhibits) they will always be filed as “Other Document.” There is no exception to this that we are aware of.
• For Confidential exhibits see Confidential Documents & Cover Sheet for Non-Public Documents 11.2 – K|H Law Wiki (theintervenors.com)
• In the filing description, indicate the exhibit # you are filing, for example “Exhibit 1 for Petitioner’s Affidavit”
• Always double check all your exhibits before finalizing a filing
• Always eserve on OPA.
  • If OPP is pro-se, you will need to print and mail all exhibits along with the accompanying affidavit. Make sure you do this after you’ve stamped, redacted, etc.

After filing

• Save efiled (court stamped) versions of all the exhibits to pleadings (just like any other pleading)
• Share with client
• Clean up your folder – delete any duplicates you have of exhibits, especially if you were reducing size, redacting, combining, etc. Don’t let your file get bogged down unnecessarily. You only need to keep the court stamped exhibits.