Preparing radiology images as court exhibits
Radiology evidence in a personal injury or workers' compensation case follows a predictable path: the patient gets an imaging CD, gives it to their attorney, and the attorney needs the images in a format the expert witness, court, and opposing counsel can actually view. The DICOM files on the CD are not that format.
A properly prepared radiology exhibit is a PDF (or a set of JPGs) showing the images with the correct clinical windowing — the same view the radiologist used when reporting the study. For a lumbar spine MRI, the soft tissue window that shows disc herniation and nerve root impingement; for an extremity X-ray, the bone window showing the fracture. The DICOM tags encode which window to use; a DICOM-aware converter applies them automatically.
Privacy matters at every step. DICOM files contain PHI — patient name, ID, date of birth, study date. Do not use an upload-based converter for imaging that will eventually enter a legal record: you have no control over how that third party stores or accesses the data. This converter processes files locally and transmits nothing.
DicomExhibit is not a medical device and does not provide clinical analysis. The conversion produces a faithful visual representation of the pixel data; clinical interpretation is the radiologist's job.
Open the converter — free, no upload
The exhibit preparation workflow
- Copy the .dcm files for the relevant series from the imaging CD.
- Drop them into the converter and choose PDF output.
- Review the previews — check that contrast looks correct for the injury in question.
- Download the PDF. Label pages clearly (e.g., 'MRI Lumbar Spine, T2 Sagittal, [Date]').
- Retain the original .dcm files unchanged — the opposing expert may request them.
Questions
Do I need a radiology expert to prepare the exhibit images?
Not for the conversion — this is a format translation, not an interpretation. The radiologist's report documents what the images show; the exhibit images just need to be correctly rendered. That is a technical step, not a clinical one.
Should the exhibit show the same images as the radiology report?
Typically yes — the images the radiologist references in their report are the ones that support your case. Your attorney or expert will identify which series and which slices.
How do I handle multi-slice series?
Either include representative slices (a handful that clearly show the relevant finding) or the full series for completeness. For a court exhibit, the full version's batch PDF with one image per page keeps everything in one file.