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How to Prepare an Application Record in Ontario

A practical guide for lawyers, paralegals, and law clerks

An application is decided on a written record rather than a trial, so the application record is the case. In Ontario civil proceedings, its contents come from Rule 38.09 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. The applicant's record must be complete, consecutively paginated, tabbed and indexed, and it is usually accompanied by a factum. Everything the judge reads about your application, they read here.

Application record vs. motion record

The two records look similar and are built the same way, but they serve different steps:

A motion record (Rule 37.10) supports a motion within a proceeding — an interlocutory step such as a request for production or an injunction.
An application record (Rule 38.09) contains the evidence on which the whole application will be decided. It is filed by the applicant, and the respondent may file a responding record.

Because the application record is the entire evidentiary basis for the decision, the courts tend to be stricter about completeness and organisation.

What goes in the applicant's record

The applicant's application record is assembled in this order:

Table of contents — describing each document, including each exhibit, by its nature and date;
Notice of application;
All affidavits and other evidence to be relied on, with exhibits;
Relevant transcripts of examinations, or the relevant extracts;
Any other material required for the hearing.

The respondent may serve and file a responding application record containing a table of contents and any additional affidavits, transcripts or material to be relied on. A factum is generally required from each party; check the current rule and any practice direction of the region you are filing in for the deadlines that apply.

Common omission: the exhibits to an affidavit are part of the record and each must be listed in the table of contents by nature and date. A record whose index reads "Affidavit of J. Smith — Exhibits A to M" without describing them will draw comment.

Formatting the court expects

Consecutive page numbering. Pages run from the first page of the record to the last, across every document and exhibit. Page numbers in the table of contents must match the page positions in the PDF.
Tabs. Each document gets a tab, lettered or numbered to match the index, with a divider page in an electronic record.
A descriptive table of contents. "Affidavit of Jane Smith, sworn March 3, 2026" with the exhibits listed beneath it, each with its own page number.
Cover page. The court, court file number, style of cause, the name of the record ("Application Record of the Applicant") and counsel information.
Hyperlinks. For electronic filing and Case Center, a table of contents whose entries link to the documents is expected in practice and saves the judge time.

A workflow that avoids re-doing the record

Collect the affidavits, exhibits and transcripts as separate PDFs, named the way they should appear in the index.
Decide the tab structure before assembling: one tab per affidavit, exhibits beneath.
Assemble, paginate and hyperlink in one pass, so a late-arriving affidavit means a regeneration rather than a manual re-paginate of 300 pages.
Check the PDF: open the table of contents, click every entry, confirm each lands on the right first page, and confirm the printed page number matches the viewer's page position.

Skip the manual formatting

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This guide is general information for legal professionals, not legal advice. Court rules and practice directions change — always confirm the current requirements of the court you are filing in before you file.