Keeping Track of Where Documents Have Come From

When there is a problem which becomes a legal dispute, the civil court or other tribunal, if matters get that far, will decide the dispute based on the evidence. One category of evidence is the evidence of witnesses who tell the tribunal what they remember. There is also documentary evidence which includes things such as emails, letters and photos as well as formal documents like deeds and contracts.

It is important to keep track of where the documents you have came from. There are three main reason for this. First, there is the question of provenance.  If you made a handwritten note of some event which you saw with your own eyes, at the time, and have kept it, unaltered, ever since, for example, that is rather different from some note produced years after the event by someone else. 

Secondly,  in some legal proceedings, the relevant issues to be determined by the tribunal include not only what actually happened in the past but what you (or the other party) knew (or should have known) or what you believed, at particular points in time in the past. Because of this when a document first came into your hands can be important. Is it a document you have had for some time or did you obtain it (or was it sent to you) recently?

Thirdly there is the question of the date a document was created. If you obtain an official copy of a document filed in an official public register such as Companies House, or a council's register of planning applications, you know that the document which it is a copy of must have been created on a date not later than the date of filing, which is some confirmation of any date which the document itself may bear.

Examples of what NOT to do

What NOT to do - EXAMPLE 1

15 years ago you bought a house. You have kept the estate agents details, and letters and documents which your conveyancing solicitor sent you at the time, in a cardboard file. The house is an old house and the people you bought the house from also gave you, at the time, some old maps, plans and documents which were of historical interest, and you put these in the same cardboard file. Three weeks ago a query, which turned into a dispute, arose with your neighbour who claimed that part of what you had always thought of as your garden was in fact part of their registered title. During discussions with them, they gave you copies of some old documents and you filed them away in the same cardboard file. You then started to do your own research, getting historical documents from the Land Registry and other public sources, and from other neighbours, which you also stored in the same same cardboard file. A week later your neighbour's solicitors wrote to you about the dispute enclosing copies of historical documents, and you filed their letter in the cardboard file. You also filed the documents enclosed with their letter separately in the cardboard file. A month later, thinking about the dispute, you decided to go through the cardboard file and sort the various documents into chronological order.

Formal legal proceedings have now been started and it turns out that one of the issues in the case is whether you believed (at least until recently) that you owned the disputed land and whether, if you did, your belief was a reasonable belief in the circumstances at the time. Because it is now clear that what documents you saw when you bought the house are important - because relevant to your belief and the reasonableness of it - you look through the cardboard file to find the documents you were given when you bought the house. But you can't work out which they were. You pick up a conveyance and ask yourself: was that one of the documents you were given originally or did you obtain that from your recent research, or was it one of the documents which your neighbours' solicitor sent you recently, or a copy your neighbours gave you when you met them recently? 

What NOT to do - EXAMPLE 2

You have been buying services from a supplier for over 10 years and you have a file for that supplier. It contains letters, brochures, purchase orders, invoices, statements, agreements, and a number of versions of the supplier's term and conditions. About 6 months ago a dispute arose about the quality of the services provided in the past and you have been withholding payment. You tried, unsuccessfully, to come to some resolution by phone, and you have now received a letter from the supplier setting out their position. Enclosed with that letter are a number of documents. You reply to the letter and put your reply, together with their letter, and separately the documents enclosed with it, in the file. Eventually you get a letter from the supplier's solicitor also enclosing some documents. Again you reply to the letter and put everything in the file for the supplier. A month later, thinking about the dispute, you decide to go through the file, sorting the various documents into chronological order.

Legal proceedings have now been started and it turns out that one of the issues in the case is whether you had received version 11.6 of the supplier's terms and conditions (dated 10th April 2020) before you sent a purchase order to them on 1st August 2020. You look through the file for the supplier and there is a single copy of the version 11.6 terms and conditions there but when did you receive it? Has it been in the file for a while or was it one of the documents sent to you recently by the supplier or by their solicitor? 

The Solution - How to handle documents correctly when received

Every time you obtain or receive documents you should store them in a way which records where they came from and when you received/obtained them:-

• When you receive papers in the post, scan them in as PDFs the same day and send them as email attachments to yourself with a Subject of e.g. "Post received today" so that if, in the future, you need to check, you have a record in your email system of when, and in what circumstances, you received the documents. You should scan in the letter, and each distinct enclosed document, as a separate PDF - giving each a descriptive filename such as Letter 25 Sep 2022.pdf or Report 1 Mar 2021.pdf - but send them to yourself all attached to the same email as they came in the same envelope. You should also physically store the papers in the envelope they came in but scanning them in means that you can refer in future to the scanned copies and should not normally need to take the physical papers out so that there is less chance of them being misplaced. Note: always use the three letter short form for the month in the PDF name as shown in the example above, rather than e.g. 25 Sept 2022 or 25 September 2022.  

• If papers are simply handed to you (so that there is no covering letter) scan them in as PDFs the same day and send them as email attachments to yourself with a Subject of e.g. "handed to me by Mr Smith today on my doorstep" so that if, in the future, you need to check, you have a record in your email system of when, and in what circumstances, you received the documents. Scan in each distinct document as a separate PDF but send them all attached to the same email as they were handed to you together.  (You should also physically store the papers in the envelope they came in - or in a fresh envelope  marked appropriately if they were just handed to you loose - but scanning them in means that you can refer in future to the scanned copies and should not normally need to take the physical papers out so that there is less chance of them being misplaced.)   

• For things received by email, your email system will automatically record when and from where they were received. 

• If you obtain documents electronically from an official website such as from the Land Registry or Companies House - or from a publicly available privately run source of historical documents such as Google Earth - ideally, if you have the option, you should get the website to send the documents to you as email attachments so that you have an email documenting when you obtained them and from where. This applies particularly in the case of private sources where may be no guarantee that a particular document will always be available. For example Google Earth only provides one image for each time period - as Google acquire more historical images the image available for a particular time period may be replaced by another image for the same period which, due to differences in lighting, angle, cloud cover, etc. might not show as clearly some detail the previously available image did. 

• If it is not possible or practical to get an official or private website to send the documents to you as email attachments - so that you have to download them instead - store them in a new folder on your computer, create a 7-ZIP or RAR archive of the folder, and give the archive file a name which records where they came from and when.  

Of course you may not have done the above in the past because you were not aware that a legal dispute might arise. You might have kept folders for specific subjects and added to them from time to time. But as soon as matters get to the point where you think that some issue which has arisen might result in a some kind of formal dispute, you should "freeze" the existing folders of documents (and take care to preserve them) and, from then on, for new documents received,  deal with them as explained above.

Loading documents to a document management system if there are legal proceedings (or if there is a possibility that legal proceedings will commence soon)

As part of legal proceedings (if proceedings are actually commenced at some point) at various stages the parties will be disclosing copies of relevant documents which they possess (or which are under their control), and in preparation for disclosure you will be loading documents you have to a document management system such as  Bundledocs or eBrief Ready. When doing this it is important to be clear about which documents you already had before legal proceedings were intimated, and which documents you have now but only because the other side has sent them to you recently because of the legal proceedings (e.g. pursuant to a tribunal direction for disclosure, or enclosed with a "letter before action" or similar).

Loading Documents - identifying which party is bringing a document to the proceedings

If you are using a document management system you should, if legal proceedings have already commenced when you come to load a document to the document management system, type in A, C, D, or R for each document to indicate whether it is a document which you have disclosed (or will be disclosing at the appropriate time) or whether it is a document copy disclosed to you by the other side.  A stands for Applicant, C for Claimant, D for Defendant, R for Respondent etc.

Note that when deciding whether to enter A or R etc. for a document you are loading the question is which party is bringing the document to the proceedings rather than who originally created the document. For example, say you are the Applicant - 

• If the other side sent you a letter three years ago complaining about your parking, and you kept that letter, you would enter A when loading that letter.

• If the other side - the Respondent - kept a copy of that letter and also kept a copy of your reply and have now sent both to you as part of disclosure in the legal proceedings (either after formal legal proceedings have started or perhaps just before with a "letter before action" or similar) you would enter R for both when loading them.   

Although it depends, to a certain extent, on the type of legal proceedings, it is usual for parties to provide copies of documents at the following stages of litigation before the final hearing:-

1. During the pre-action correspondence phase (generally the providing of documents in this phase, before formal legal proceedings have actually commenced, is voluntary rather than being ordered by the tribunal) or as part of a Land Registry application. 

2. At the initial Statements of Case stage of litigation when key documents may accompany each Statement of Case

3. At the main Disclosure of Documents stage of litigation when the remaining relevant documents are disclosed

4. Late disclosure - occasionally a disclosable document only comes into a party's hands after the main Disclosure of Documents stage so they disclose it immediately they receive it

If you are loading a document before legal proceedings have commenced - i.e. at stage 1 -  type the name of the party which has provided the document - e.g. SMITH  - instead of A,  C, D, or R .  Then, as soon as proceedings are commenced and it is known which party is the Applicant and which is Respondent etc., you can replace the party name with A,  C, D, or R etc. as appropriate.

Loading documents - Document Date

When you load a document you specify a Document Date as in this example using the Bundledocs system:

with the Document Date being the date the document was created/signed (or taken in the case of a photo). In the case of an email or digital photo the time would be included as well.

Where the date you received a document is significantly later than the date it was created/signed, it can sometimes - not always but sometimes - be important to add, in brackets at the end of the Document Description, the date that you received the document (the exact date if you know it or otherwise the approximate date as best you can remember it) as shown below. 

The date you received/obtained a document might be important if, for example, you thought for a long time that you owned land but as a result of seeing the document you started to wonder, or if someone told you something and you only discovered otherwise when later you saw the document, or you made an agreement with someone and you only received their standard terms and conditions - or some document referred to in the agreement - after you had made the agreement. 

Normally a Document Description does not include the date the document was created/signed (because there is a separate Document Date field which gives this information) but if you are including in the Document Description the date that you received the document you should always also include the date the document was created/signed in the Document Description as well.

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 will not be applicable to every case: it is intended to be used only in conjunction with more 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 April 2025. Disclaimer