Guide · File naming

How to name scanned legal documents, so you can find them twice

A scanned file arrives named scan001.pdf and stays that way, because naming it properly takes thirty seconds you do not have. Six months later the thirty seconds become an afternoon: which folder held the orthopedist’s bill, and was it February or March? This is the rule we use on our own sample desk. It takes no tools and about a minute per matter to set up.

The rule: matter, type, date — in that order

Every document in a matter gets the same three-part name: the matter, then the document type, then the date. The matter comes first because your file list sorts alphabetically — leading with the matter keeps one case’s papers together even when everything lives in one folder. The date goes last, written year-first, so the newest document sorts to the bottom where your eye already is.

Leave out what the folder already tells you. If the file sits in a “Delgado” folder, the client name is still worth keeping: folders get copied, files get attached to emails and wander off on their own. A file should survive being separated from its folder.

What it looks like

The names above are a sample from our demo matter, not a client file. Two details worth copying: a comma-free dash between the parts (commas fight with search), and the payer spelled out in the bill’s name — “medical bill” alone stops meaning anything once there are four of them.

Three things people skip, then regret

Dates as words. 3-4-26 reads as March 4 in one calendar and April 3 in another. Year-first numbers sort correctly on every machine, which is why the sample above ends the way it does.

Versions by gut feel. “Final” and “final2” are not versions, they are hope. If a document has a filing date, that date is its version — there is only one complaint filed on March 4.

Renaming at upload time only. The rule works when it is applied to the backlog too, not just to new scans. Doing it by hand for a hundred old files is a bad afternoon; doing it never is why the afternoon happens. This is the one part we built into the product: on the myDesk desk, every file you drop in is read and renamed into this shape before it lands, and you confirm the name — the desk never files something you have not seen.

Where the rule meets the desk

Naming is half the finding problem; the other half is tying each file to the matter and the deadline it belongs to. That is what the desk itself does — create a matter, add a deadline, drop in a document. The free plan holds two active matters and takes about five minutes to set up: start free and the rule above is applied to your first uploads automatically.

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