Organising Documents on DCS for Lands Chamber s.84 Applications

Everything you send or receive during the course of the litigation, including both correspondence about the case and formal litigation documents, will be automatically stored in your email system, but you will find that, as litigation proceeds over many months, you will end up with a large number of emails in your email system, so, whenever you receive, or send out, a key formal litigation document, you should store a copy of it in the appropriate location in Caselines Digital Case System (DCS), as described below, so that you can easily locate these important documents when needed as the case proceeds, and not have to search for them in your email system.

A word about terminology. The whole of the litigation is referred to as a "case" and the tribunal will allocate a case number. But the DCS system also uses the word "case" to refer to a collection of documents (from which, if necessary, a "bundle" can easily be produced). So there will be several DCS cases for your single tribunal case.

Storing the above documents in DCS in the way described not only allows you to find key important documents quickly but, most importantly, will allow you to deal with the process of the production of a Trial Bundle. Because the process of production of the Trial Bundle is a collaborative task between the parties, and the other party might be inefficient, it is essential to have all documents which might need to be included in the Trial Bundle ready in DCS so that, if necessary, the Trial Bundle (or a Supplementary Trial Bundle if the other side is producing the Trial Bundle and refuses to include documents you require) can be produced quickly in time to meet the deadline for delivery which will normally be a week or two before the trial.

Also the DCS system is where I will look, from now on once you have set it up, for certain key documents as the litigation proceeds and you ask me to carry out work at each stage. It would not be cost-effective for me to search through your cloud storage, so don't give me access to your cloud storage, but instead you should put copies of the key documents and relevant documentary evidence, in DCS as explained below.

You will be granting me access to the DCS cases, as described below, so that I can use them for reference each time you ask me to do the next piece of work as the litigation proceeds. I do not need access to your own cloud storage such as Google Drive - indeed it it best if you do not grant me access to your own cloud storage as, because of the way the human mind works, if I have access to your cloud storage you may start to think - perhaps subconsciously - that when doing each piece of work you ask me to do, I will be considering everything contained in your cloud storage when, in fact, it is only the documents in the DCS cases described below which I will be considering (together with any email message and attachments you provide to me at the point where you ask me to carry out the next piece of work in your case). Ensuring that I do not have access to your cloud storage will remind you that it is your responsibility to ensure that the DCS cases are up to date with the key documents they are designed to hold (but no other documents).

Contents

1 Organising documents in Caselines DCS
2 Organising Your Email Folders
3 Paper files you should keep
4 Disclaimer

Organising documents in Caselines DCS

In the Caselines Digital Case System (DCS) groups of documents are organised into what are called cases and, within each case, documents can be further divided into sections. As shown below, you will initially need to create two or three DCS cases for your case, and you may need, later on, to create further cases to produce bundles for the trial. How to load documents is explained here.

The documents to be stored in each DCS case are shown in the tables below. As well as making sure you do store the key formal litigation documents in the correct sections in the Pleadings, Orders, Reports and Witness Statements case as soon as you send or receive them, it is equally important that you do not store, in a DCS section, a document which does not belong there. If, for example, you were to store every piece of correspondence sent or received, into the sections of the Case Management intended for formal litigation documents, “just in case”, that would defeat the object because the important documents would be lost among the mass of more routine correspondence.

NOTE: If you are involved in both a court case and a tribunal case at the same time - for example if an injunction is claimed in High Court proceedings and, an interim injunction having been granted, the High Court has stayed the case so that an application can be made to the Upper Tribunal (lands Chamber), then you will have two sets of DCS cases, one for the Court proceedings and one for the Tribunal proceedings, and it is important to name them distinctly so, for example, you might name one DCS case Smith v Jones - Court Pleadings, Orders and Witness Statements and the other one Smith v Jones - Tribunal Pleadings, Orders, Reports and Witness Statements.

Smith v Jones - Tribunal Pleadings, Orders, Reports and Witness Statements case

Name of Section	Order by	What documents should be stored in it
Statements of Case	Date	Documents drafted by each side which seek to define, at a summary level, the assertions of each party and to what extent they are disputed by the other party. Also the Application Form and Notice of Objection are stored here – e.g. Application 20 Jan 18 Applicant’s Statement of Case 20 Apr 18 Notice of Objection 15 May 18 Objector's Statement of Case 15 May 18
Tribunal Orders	Date	Orders made by the tribunal (e.g. about how the parties are to prepare for trial) and notices issued by the tribunal such as a Notice of Hearing - e.g. Order 27 Feb 18
Applicant’s Expert Report There should be a separate section for each expert so if the Applicant has two experts and there are two Objectors with one expert each, there will be four sections.	Date	An Expert’s report and the replies the expert gives to subsequent questions sent by either party are stored here – e.g. Expert Report Mr Jenkins 14 Sep 18 Supplementary Expert Report Mr Jenkins 30 Oct 18 Expert’s Replies to Questions 14 Nov 18
Applicant’s Witness Statements	Date	Signed witness statements of the Applicant and each of the Applicant’s witnesses (and any exhibits referred to in them) – e.g. 1st Witness Statement of John Smith 02 Jun 18 Exhibit JJS1 02 Jun 18 Exhibit JJS2 02 Jun 18 1st Witness Statement of Peter West 14 May 18
Objector’s Witness Statements If there is more than one Objector there should be a separate section for each Objector.	Date	Signed witness statements of the Objector and each of the Objector’s witnesses (and any exhibits referred to in them) – e.g. 1st Witness Statement of Jeremy Jones 03 May 18 Exhibit JRJ1 03 May 18 Exhibit JRJ2 03 May 18 1st Witness Statement of Pamela Jenkins 10 May 18 Exhibit PRD1 14 May 18

Smith v Jones - My Documentary Evidence case

This case should contains your relevant documentary evidence. Those documents which it is decided to use are likely to be put into exhibits when witness statements come to be made but, meanwhile, copies are stored here.

In addition to the two “cases” described above, there should be a separate DCS “case” or “cases” for documentary evidence.

Name of Section	Section number	Order by	Examples of documents which might be stored in section
Photographs	A	Date	Photo of Orchard 17 Jun 99 Photo of Orchard 23 May14 Video of Orchard 01 22 Nov 14
AB123456 Title Deeds	B	Date	Conveyance 10 Apr 99 Register of Title AB123456 31 Oct 16 Title Plan AB123456 31 Oct 16
CD654321 Title Deeds	C	Date	Conveyance 15 Mar 98 Register of Title CD654321 31 Oct 16 Title Plan CD654321 31 Oct 16
Other Documents	D	Date	Letter John Smith to Lucy Jones 15 Aug 12 Agreement John Smith and Lucy Jones 20 Sep 12 Email at 10.20 John Smith to Peter Jones 15 Aug 13

Usually the main run of documents are best arranged chronologically regardless of the document type, whether contract, purchase order, invoice, letter, email etc. in the Other Documents section, so that the sequence of events can be seen. However sometimes certain limited groups of documents (such as title deeds for different properties as shown in the example above) are best organised separately from the main run of documents – still organised chronologically but separately.

Choose the No Page Numbers option and untick Include Front Page and Index in Complete Bundle in the Master Bundle options for this case

Important Note It is important that you do not store, in the DCS cases and sections shown above, documents which do not belong there. If, for example, you were to store every piece of correspondence sent or received, into the sections of the Case Management intended for formal litigation documents, “just in case”, that would defeat the object because the important documents would be lost among the mass of more routine correspondence. You may need, when the times comes, to create a bundle containing documents directly relating to a particular forthcoming hearing but this should be done by creating a new and separate DCS case, to contain the documents required for that hearing (some of which may be copied from the reference cases), not by adding documents to the above cases and sections which do not belong there.

Audio and Video file placeholders

Your documentary evidence includes not only written documents but also any relevant audio or video files (e.g. mp3 and mp4 files). You should store copies of these on cloud storage such as, for video files, Canon Irista. For each video or audio file, create a one page placeholder, and paste a read/download-only link into the placeholder page so that the placeholder page looks something like this:

then store only the placeholder file in the My Documentary Evidence case

Smith v Jones - Documentary Evidence Provided by Other Side case

This case is for documents you have recently received from the other party (or their solicitors) relating to the application to modify/discharge restrictive covenants

Note: If the other side have provided copies of the documents in PDF form, one PDF per document with suitable names, it may be simpler to load them all, rather than check which ones are exactly identical (e.g. without extra annotations) to ones you already have, but if there are a large number of documents provided in less convenient form (e.g. on paper or all in a single PDF without suitable bookmarks) most of which are identical to ones you already have, it may be easier to first check them against your documents (in the My Documentary Evidence case) and only load up those which are additional or different. In this case the DCS case should be renamed Smith v Jones - Additional Documentary Evidence Provided by the Other Side.

Section Letter	Section Title	Order Docs by	Examples of documents which might be stored in section
A	Photographs	Date	Photo of Orchard 17 Feb 99 Photo of Orchard 23 May 14
B	Other Documents	Date	Conveyance Lloyd to Briggs 10 Apr 99 Letter Williams to Jenkins 13 Jul 07 Letter Smith to Jones 15 Aug 12 Agreement Smith and Jones 20 Sep 12 Email at 10.20 Smith to Jones 15 Aug 13

Choose the No Page Numbers option and untick Include Front Page and Index in Complete Bundle in the Master Bundle options for this case

Extra DCS Cases for Hearing Bundles

Usually, when the time comes for the main hearing, or "trial", at the end of the litigation process, the Pleadings Orders, Reports and Witness Statements case is renamed Complete set of Case Documents for Trial and a Trial Bundle is created from the DCS case by ticking/unticking the Included box for documents as appropriate. If it is the other side, rather than you, which has been directed to assemble a trial bundle, you will need to tell the other side what documents you require to be included in it and the Complete set of Case Documents for Trial DCS case is used for that purpose.

However sometimes there may be short hearings on the way before the trial and, if so, a short hearing bundle will be required for that hearing. In this situation the short hearing bundle will be produced by creating a new and separate DCS case, to contain the documents required just for that hearing (which may be copied from the Pleadings Orders, Reports and Witness Statements DCS case). All bundles should be kept intact after the hearings they were produced for because, although a short hearing results in a tribunal order and it is normally only the order which needs subsequently to be referred to, occasionally it happens that some occurrence in the future means that some document used in the earlier hearing, which is not contained in the other DCS cases, needs to be consulted.

Once the trial has ended and the judge has pronounced judgment, that is normally the end of the litigation (barring any assessment of costs if that was not carried out at the end of the trial) but occasionally one side or the other may appeal to a higher court and, in that case, a new and separate DCS case is set up to produce an appeal bundle.

Sometimes it is agreed that there will be a formal mediation, conducted by a professional mediator, to see if a settlement is possible, and, if there is a mediation, usually a mediation bundle is produced, to be used by the parties and the mediator, by setting up a new and separate DCS case.

Smith v Jones - Comments on Statements case

This case is for confidential notes and documents which will be used by your barrister at trial but which are not to be included in the Trial Bundle.

Section Title	Section Letter	Order Documents by	What documents should be stored in the section
Comments on Witness Statements	Z	Title	Your witness statement, and the statements of your witnesses (which are stored in the Pleadings, Orders, Reports and Witness Statements case) should cover everything relevant which you/the witness has knowledge of. However sometimes, after witness statements are exchanged (towards the end of the litigation process not long before the trial) additional comments need to be made by your or by your witnesses about what the other side's witnesses have said in their witness statements. The other side's witnesses may have described an event in a different way from you and your barrister will need to know to what extent what they say is essentially correct (and maybe just a matter of different words or emphasis) and to what extent you disagree with the substance of what they say. Such confidential comments are stored here for use by your barrister in cross-examination at the trial. John Smith - comments on statement of Jeremy Jones 15 Jun 17 John Smith - comments on statement of Phillip Murray 16 Jun 17 Paula Smith - comments on statement of Jeremy Jones 16 Jun 17 Also to be stored in this section is any proof of evidence. In many the basic facts are relatively straightforward so that they are covered in your pleadings (even though pleadings have to be concise) but where this is not the case (i.e. relatively complicated facts) normally a proof of evidence will be taken at an early stage so that your barrister knows what your detailed recollection of events is, even before your first witness statement (which will cover only the issues still in dispute) is produced towards the end of the case in preparation for the trial. Any such proof of evidence is also stored in this section. If a witness statement has been taken from a witness whom it is decided not to use as a witness (i.e. neither use as a live witness nor on the basis of putting forward just their statement) then the statement should be stored here (and not in the Pleadings, Orders, Reports and Witness Statements case) to ensure that it is not accidentally exchanged.

Choose the No Page Numbers option and untick Include Front Page and Index in Complete Bundle in the Master Bundle options for this case

Smith v Jones - For Costs Arguments case

This case is for documents which might be used in arguments about costs at the end of a hearing once the judge has given judgment.

Section Title	Section Letter	Order Documents by	What documents should be stored in the section
Open Offers	XA	Date	Open offers (i.e. offers from one party to the other which are not Part 36 offers, without prejudice offers, without prejudice except as to costs offers, nor Calderbank offers) and any open responses (e.g. explaining why an offer is not accepted, requesting further information, etc) are stored here.
Costs Orders	XB	Date	This section contains all orders the tribunal has already made about costs. For example at a previous application hearing to determine when an objector should be admitted to the case the judge might have ordered one side or the other to pay the costs of determining that issue, so that those costs have already been dealt with and should not be counted again.
Interim costs Schedules	XC	Date	At the litigation proceeds through various stages either party may have provided an interim schedule of costs incurred or an estimate of costs to be incurred. These should be stored here.
Other documents relevant to costs	XD	Date	This section is not for documents which may be useful for assessment of costs (deciding how much a party ordered to pay costs should pay) but for documents which may be relevant to arguments about who should pay costs or whether they should pay the costs (whatever they are after assessment) for the whole period of the litigation or for a particular part of the litigation. An example of documents stored here would be correspondence pointing out that a party's conduct in the litigation process itself has unnecessarily increased costs.
Without Prejudice offers	WOP	Date	Any Part 36 offers, without prejudice except as to costs offers, and Calderbank offers, and any responses (e.g. explaining why an offer is not accepted, requesting further information, etc) are stored here. If one party proposes mediation but mediation does not take place then the letter proposing mediation, and any reply declining mediation, should be stored here. Letter Defendant to Claimant 28 Feb 18 NB Offers and responses which are unqualifiedly without prejudice (i.e. without prejudice rather than without prejudice except as to costs) are not stored here because these cannot be shown to the judge even after judgment. Initial letters proposing/or refusing mediation are normally without prejudice except as to costs and so would be stored here, but any documents produced during, or in preparation for, mediation itself will be unqualifiedly without prejudice (even if they do not explicitly say so) and are not stored here.

As well as the Master Bundle, a sub-bundle named OPEN should be created containing all the documents for all sections except the WOP section. The Bundle Settings for both Master bundle and OPEN sub-bundle should be set as follows

Page Number Position in the Bundle - Right

Page Stamping Colour - Red

Section Numbering Restarts in the Bundle - ticked

Display Document Dates in the Index - ticked

Display Section Numbers in the Index - ticked

Include Front Page and Index in Complete Bundle - ticked

Include Front Pages and Indexes in each Section - unticked

A hardcopy bundle is then created as follows:

1. Print out the entire OPEN sub-bundle

2. Print just the WOP section from the Master Bundle.

3. File the pages of the WOP section after all the pages printed from the OPEN sub-bundle

The above procedure results in a bundle having a main index at the front which lists documents in all sections except the WOP section. The purpose in doing this is as follows. The general idea of a Costs Arguments bundle is that it should not need to be used until after the judge has given judgment (decided who wins) but occasionally some documents in it may need to be shown to the judge before judgment. However the documents in the WOP section must not be seen by the judge until after judgment. By excluding the documents in the WOP section from the index it is possible, if necessary, to remove the WOP documents (each one of which will be identified by the letters WOP in red as part of the page number on the bottom right) and for the remainder of the bundle - including the main index - to be seen by the judge.

Important Note: The above DCS case is not for documents which may be useful for assessment of costs (deciding how much a party ordered to pay costs should pay) but for documents which may be relevant to arguments about who should pay costs or whether they should pay the costs (whatever they are after assessment) for the whole period of the litigation or for a particular part of the litigation. An example of documents stored here would be correspondence pointing out that a party's conduct in the litigation process itself has unnecessarily increased costs. Interim costs schedules (if there are any) are included in the case only for the purpose of giving a rough assessment of the proportion of costs incurred at different stages of the litigation process (not for the purposes of assessment of costs).

Saving PDF copies of Bundles

As explained above, whenever there is a hearing a hearing bundle will need to be produced, either by you or by the other side. If the hearing bundle is produced by you using DCS it will be produced in PDF form before it is printed and you should save the bundle PDF (on your computer or in cloud storage). Although, once used for a hearing, a case bundle should be kept intact and unchanged in DCS, there is always the possibility of it being changed by mistake (you might amend it by mistake when you intended to update one of the general reference cases for example), so you should retain the bundle PDF as it was when you printed it out and created the hardcopy bundle, so that for each hearing you have an exact copy of what the hardcopy bundle contained.

Organising Your Email Folders

Virtually all correspondence you send or receive in the course of litigation will be automatically stored in your email system. This even includes much correspondence received by post because some of that you will be emailing that to me to ask me to advise. Likewise you will be emailing to me PDF copies of any signed letters you send out by post which you have asked me to draft. Because searchable email folders are so convenient, people sometimes, even if they have no other reason to send by email, scan things in as PDFs and email them to themselves so that they can store them in a convenient email folder. For example if you receive an invoice for a disbursement by post, you could scan it in, email it to yourself, and store it in the CostsDisbursementsEvidence folder (as well as keeping the paper original).

I would suggest that you have a high-level folder for emails relating to the case (named - e.g. Smith v Jones) to keep them separate from other emails, such as your personal emails, and that below that high-level folder you have at least the following sub-folders.

Service	Any emails from me regarding advising how to validly file and serve formal documents. Also any correspondence sent by you or received by you which notifies an address for service or a change of address for service of formal documents (including any correspondence notifying a change of solicitor representing the other party).
ServiceEvidence	Evidence of how and when you served particular documents on parties, for example, a certificate of posting provided by the Post Office.
Advices	Opinions and Advices written by me.
Settlement	Correspondence between parties which aims to achieve a settlement.
CostsDisbursementsEvidence	Supporting evidence of disbursements in the case. This may include invoices from barristers, expert witnesses, mediators and from any commercial document scanning or printing service you use, and for tribunal fees. Also any invoices associated with obtaining evidence – e.g. charges for copies of aerial photographs. Invoices can include expenditure before proceedings commenced (e.g. pre-action advice from a barrister or solicitor).
CostsOther	Most people, in order to increase the likelihood of the trial judge carrying out a (fast) summary assessment of costs at the end of the trial will, if there is a possibility they might be awarded costs, put forward a Statement of Costs for Summary Assessment at the trial which just includes disbursements (on the basis that if it includes small items as well the judge may be more inclined to order the long and costly process of Detailed Assessment for which a specialist Costs Lawyer would need to be engaged). However if, for whatever reason, Detailed Assessment is ordered normally information about all expenditure (not just Disbusements) is provided to the Costs Lawyer and to cater for this possibility all emails relevant to expenditure, however small, can be stored here.
CostsBehaviour	Any correspondence in which one party accuses the other of unreasonable litigation behaviour. Most cases are about behaviour which could be described as unreasonable but if the way a party behaves in the litigation itself is unreasonable (e.g. missing deadlines or bombarding the other party with long repetitive emails) relevant emails would be stored here as they may be relevant to the order the tribunal eventually makes about who should pay the costs of the litigation itself.

Paper files you should keep

The original signed copies of formal litigation documents which have been filed/served (e.g. statements of case and witness statements) should be kept in a paper file in case the tribunal should require them to be produced.

Disclaimer

This information page is designed to be used only by clients of John Antell who have entered into an agreement for the provision of legal services. The information in it is necessarily of a general nature and is intended to be used only in conjunction with specific advice to the individual client about the individual case. This information page should not be used by, or relied on, by anyone else.

The information on this page about specific computer techniques is provided for information purposes only. Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the information is accurate and up to date at the time it was written but no responsibility for its accuracy, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by me. You should satisfy yourself, before using any of the techniques, software or services described, that the techniques are appropriate for your purposes and that the software or service is reliable.

This page was lasted updated in July 2018 Disclaimer

John Antell - Barrister	Search this site