When there is a problem which becomes a legal dispute, the civil court or other civil 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 a number of reasons 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 also 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.
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 You then started to do your own research, getting historical documents from the Land Registry and other public sources, and from other neighbours, which you also stored in the same same cardboard file.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?
Of course when some issue first arises you don't necessarilly know where it will lead - whether it will be something you need legal advice about or not - but if you are reading this then you will at least recognise that there is some issue which could possibly go further and for which it is good to keep track of so, going forward, you should:-
Create an email folder in your email system named e.g. Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X
From that date onwards every time you obtain or receive documents you should store them in your email system in a way which records where they came from and when you received/obtained them:-
When you receive a letter in the post, scan it in as a PDF the same day, or as soon as you can, and send it as an email attachment to yourself with a Subject starting with POST RECEIVED TODAY e.g. POST RECEIVED TODAY - Letter dated 20-10-2025 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 document - in this case a letter. Use one email per envelope received, so if you received two items of post, scan in the contents of the first envelope - first the letter as a PDF and then scan in each enclosure (if there are any) each as a separate PDF, and attach them to one email and send it to yourself, then do the same for the contents of the second envelope. Move the sent emails to the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X email folder. When you scan in a letter save it as a PDF named e.g. 2025-10-20 Letter John Smith to Phillip Jones.pdf (assuming you are Phillip Jones). Many people will instinctively want to name a letter received as e.g. Letter from John Smith.pdf but it is better if you include the names of both sender and recipient to save time later on should you eventually be involved in litigation. Scan in each enclosure in as a separate PDF giving it the same name as the letter but adding Enc1, Enc2, etc. For example:
2025-10-20 Letter John Smith to Phillip Jones.pdf
2025-10-20 Letter John Smith to Phillip Jones Enc1.pdf
2025-10-20 Letter John Smith to Phillip Jones Enc2.pdf
Once you have sent the emails to yourself and saved them, you should physically store the papers in the envelope they came in. In future you can refer 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.
If you go away for a few days and return to find post waiting for you, do the same as above but use a Subject of e.g. POST RECEIVED BETWEEN 18-10-2025 and 23-10-2025 - Letter dated 20-10-2025
If papers are simply handed to you scan them in as PDFs the same day and send them as email attachments to yourself with a Subject of e.g. HAND DELIVERY 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. Move the sent email to the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X folder.
For things received by email, simply move the email to the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X folder.
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. Move the email to the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X folder. This applies particularly in the case of private sources where there 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 - send an email to yourself with a Subject of e.g. DOCUMENTS DOWNLOADED from Companies House on 20-10-2025 attaching the documents. Move the sent email to the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X folder
On the day when you decide to create the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X folder, and start using the above procedures, it might be that you have had some post in the previous week which you have opened and carefully kept, everything in its original envelope, and if you are sure you can remember the exact date that each item was received, you can do the above process for those items also, naming the Subject of each email appropriately e.g. Letter dated 20-10-2025 received by post on 21-10-2025. But don't attempt to retrospectively carry out the above procedure for items received longer ago. See instead the Existing Documents section below.
You created the email folder in your email system named e.g. Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from [current date] to 31 Dec 202X for the current year. If the matter is still ongoing in the New Year you should create a further folder in your email system named e.g. Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received in 202X and use that for the new year, so on for each succeeding year. If and when you get to the point where litigation is in prospect and you are in the "pre-action" phase, it will be important not to get confused between your own documents - which may include documents such as letters sent by the other side to you in the past in the ordinary course of events - and documents disclosed to you by the other side as part of litigation process. To make sure there is no confusion, create a new folder in your email system named e.g. Right of Way Legal Dispute 202X and use that from then on.
The above is mainly about how to handle documents and correspondence received but it is important also, when sending out, to do so in a way which is self-documenting.
In general it is more convenient to use email rather than paper. One reason for this is that if you send or receive a paper letter the recipient will need to scan it in as a PDF, probably as a matter or good housekeeping and, in any event, if it subsequently needs to be used in legal proceedings. Scanning takes time and reduces, to a degree, the quality of the image which is less than ideal particularly if the letter has an enclosure such as a copy of a photo. No scanning is necessary if you use email.
There may be particular circumstances which prompt you to use paper. For example you might not know the recipient's email address. Or you might be concerned that the recipient may deny receiving the email, or say that they didn't see it straight away because it went into their spam folder, so that you feel it would be prudent to send it by post using a "signed for" service, or at least send it by post with proof of posting. Or you might wish to hand-deliver. There are pros and cons: for example if you send "signed for" the recipient might refuse delivery so sometimes in these circumstances people send two copies - one by a "signed for" service and another by means which is prompt and reliable but which doesn't require signature. But, absent such circumstances, email is usually the better option.
You might be involved in some formal process the rules of which oblige you to send in paper form but otherwise email is usually better.
Where there is a particular reason to send in paper form it is good practice to send by email as well if you know the recipient's email address.
The convention is that at the top of a letter is the name and address of the sender. The address should always include the full physical address with postcode. If the letter is to be sent by email (or, even if not, if the sender wishes to receive a response by email) the sender's email address should also be given.
Below that and towards the left, is the name and address of the recipient.
There might be more than one recipient if exactly the same letter is to be sent to more than one person (for example the joint owners of property) in which case the names and addresses of the recipients are set out one under the other. If the letter is to be copied to someone rather than being addressed to them - e.g. if the letter is not primarily to them but you just want them to know what it says - then you should add COPY TO in front of their name and add TO in front of the other recipients' names.
If you are sending the letter by email to a recipient then you should set out that recipient's email address to which it is sent. If you are sending the letter in paper form then you set out the recipient's full postal address including postcode. It is common to set out a postal address as well as an email address even if you are only sending by email but it is essential that it is clear on the face of the letter how it is being sent so put BY FIRST CLASS POST or BY FIRST CLASS POST AND EMAIL or BY EMAIL ONLY, or BY HAND etc.
If the letter is a reply, it should start by identifying what it is replying to - e.g. "Thank you for your letter dated..." or, if "thank you" seems inappropriate given the content of the letter received, then perhaps "I acknowledge receipt of your letter dated..."
It is important that the letter itself should contain all email and/or physical address information - i.e. the sender's address should appear at the top of the letter below the sender's name, and the recipient's address should appear below the recipient's name - so that normally it is not necessary for a copy of the email and/or envelope itself to be included in any tribunal hearing bundle, which letter might later appear in, as the letter itself shows who sent the letter by email to whom and when.
Typically a letter will be composed using word-processing software such as Microsoft Word. When you are ready to send the letter out you would:
Check that the date on it is today's date. If not update the date in the Word file.
Print out the Word file and sign.
Scan the signed letter in as a PDF
If you will be enclosing with the letter a formal document which you have just signed, scan in the signed formal document as a PDF
Send an email with the letter PDF, and any enclosures, attached, to those recipients who are to receive it by email. The email message will simply be "Please see attached letter". Remember to put any refence number in the Subject - as well as in the letter itself - so that if it is being sent to an organisation the person who initially receives it can direct it efficiently to the appropriate person within the organisation. If no recipients are to receive the letter by email you should still send the email but send it just to yourself with a Subject of e.g. Letter posted today to... so that a copy is stored in your email system. Move the sent email to the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received from... folder in your email system.
If the letter is to be sent to a recipient in paper form, put the signed letter and any enclosures in an envelope, write the address on it (which must be exactly the same as the recipient address shown in the letter itself) and promptly post it or hand deliver it. If it is hand-delivered write "BY HAND" on the envelope.
Note that it is important to send an email to yourself as described above if you are sending the letter out only in paper form. There may be several drafts of a letter so it is important to retain a copy of the letter as sent out which clearly is a copy of the letter as sent out in its final form and is clearly not just an earlier draft. If you only keep the Word file and/or keep a printout of the Word file you may be uncertain, or have difficulty proving, that what you have kept is an exact copy of what was sent out, rather than a draft, but if you actually scan in the signed letter as a PDF just before you put it in the envelope and send it, and keep the PDF by emailing it to yourself, then you will know, looking back later, that the PDF copy of the signed letter is a true copy of the actual letter set out.
When a matter becomes a "dispute" or at least a problem that you are considering seeking legal advice about (even if legal proceedings are yet contemplated) you may start to research the existing documents you have accumulated. You may have paper documents in a folder labelled - e.g. Mr Jones - in your physical filing cabinet and you might scan some of them in as PDFs so that you can send them to a lawyer for advice, or perhaps just so that you yourself can more easily search them.
You may have started to store documents arriving in your Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received... email folders (as explained above) but there will be older documents elsewhere on your computer located in various ordinary folders on your computer and/or on your mobile devices and you might copy them into new folders you create on your computer so that you can more easily look at them together, at some point perhaps renaming the filenames of the copies to have concise descriptive names commencing with the date so that they appear in chronological order in a folder.
It is important that when doing this you store such copies in sets of folders which are clearly organised and named to indicate what they are so that you do not later get confused between, on the one hand, documents which you created/stored in various folders on your computer in the ordinary course of events in the past (which remain in their original locations), and, on the other hand, various copies of those documents which you have made, collected together in bulk, and at some point renamed, as part of doing some concerted research, or in order to seek legal advice, or as part of a litigation process itself such as at the “disclosure of documents” stage of litigation.
So you should create a high-level folder on your main computer so that you can keep the copies you create for research etc. separate from the other documents there may be on your computer. You could name the high-level folder e.g., depending what the dispute is about, Copy documents re Right of Way Legal Dispute 2026.
At the second level, within the high level folder, you create a folder for each of the sets of copy documents which you will be creating as follows:
General backup of mobile devices folder
Initial copies of own electronic docs by location folder (with sub-folders according to original document location)
Selected own docs by location folder (again with sub-folders according to original document location)
Docs as disclosed by the other side folder
All relevant selected docs renamed folder (includes docs disclosed by other side, all renamed with consistent concise names)
Positive train of enquiry docs renamed folder
Negative train of enquiry docs renamed folder
WOP docs folder
Privileged docs folder
How each of the above eight second-level folders is used is explained below.
You will probably first be taking backup copies of data on your mobile devices as a precaution against accidental loss, so within this folder create sub-folders to contain backups from each mobile device. Usually the amount of data stored on a mobile device is limited so that it is feasible to simply backup all photos and other documents without having, at this stage, to selectively check that all folders included contain some relevant documents (though you might need to selectively back up text messages which are not in ordinary files and so not so easy to copy wholesale). Here is an example of subfolders:
Backup of John Smith's Galaxy A37 phone
Backup of Susan Smith's iPhone 17
When copying JPG photos from a phone it is important that the JPGs are transferred within a ZIP file to avoid metadata loss during transfer.
Having carried out a blanket backup of all data on mobile devices as a precaution, your next steps will probably be to copy documents from particular locations from those mobile device backups, and from locations on your computer itself, and download some emails from particular email folders, and these would be stored in subfolders within the following second-level folder:
Within the Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location folder, create a sub-folder for each location which may contain files of interest like this:
John Smith's Galaxy A37 phone
Susan Smith's iPhone 17
Extension Drawings folder on main computer
Emails between Smith and Jones
Copy electronic documents - e.g. files on your computer, tablet, digital camera SDcard, mobile phone, USB stick, cloud storage etc., - from each of the locations you have identified to the appropriate sub-folder representing that location, without renaming them, and make sure you always "copy" files so that the original remains in situ - do not "move" them. To copy an email, first download it as an EML file. If copying JPG photos direct from a phone it is important that the JPGs are transferred within a ZIP file to avoid metadata loss during transfer, but in any case at this stage you will probably not be copying any JPGs direct from a phone but rather copying them from a zip file which you created earlier within the General backup of mobile devices folder which is already on your computer.
What does "location" mean?
Each sub-folder represents a location that the documents have been copied from. A "location" can be a physical location, for example, a particular mobile phone.
Most devices store documents in folders which are in a hierarchy. The folder at the top of the hierarchy may be named simply Documents. It would be possible for every document to have simply been saved within a high-level folder named Documents without it having any sub-folders, and this might be done on mobile devices where the total number of documents (other than photos) may be relatively few. But on a computer it is usual to have created sub-folders for each subject or project in much the same way that a physical filing cabinet may contain a different labelled suspension file for each subject or project.
A particular folder, together with any sub-folders within it, can be considered to be a "location" (rather than the entire device being considered a single location).
The purpose of counting a set of documents as a separate "location" is so that you can keep track of how much searching you have done in each particular location and also because sometimes where a document was originally stored may shed some light on when, and in what circumstances, the document was originally created by you or came into your possession. Knowing which location a document has come from may also give you an indication as to where other similar or related documents might be held. Also some courts issue complex "disclosure of documents" directions with different directions applying to documents in different locations and, before considering issuing such directions, will require the parties to submit a disclosure report giving an overview of what documents exist or may exist that are or may be relevant to the matters in issue in the case, and where and with whom those documents are or may be located. So you need to divide up the totality of documents into meaningful "locations".
Sometimes documents are stored in different folders according to document type. For example on many devices there is a high level Pictures folder as well as a high-level Documents folder. Often the Pictures high level folder contains a sub-folder for each year and, within that, a sub-folder for each month. So although some photos relevant to a particular subject or project may in the past have been copied or moved to a sub-folder within Documents, so that they are conveniently available alongside other documents relating to that subject or project, some other photos also relevant to a subject or project may be only available in sub-folders within the general Pictures folder. So you may need to treat, for example Pictures/2023 and Pictures/2024 as additional "locations".
The Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location folder which you created earlier contains subfolders each containing all the electronic documents from a particular location. The Selected own docs by location folder also contains subfolders named after the same locations but each of its subfolders only contains individual documents you have selected as being of interest and copied from the corresponding subfolder in the Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location folder - not all the documents from the subfolder. When copying do not rename. When you first start to review documents, initially you will probably be looking at a limited number of documents selected from each location, but you may copy over further selected documents, which are of interest, later on.
The Selected own docs by location folder also contains subfolders for each location where there may be physical papers of interest - a physical photo album, for example. If you have physical documents organised in labelled suspension files, then, instead of simply using "my filing cabinet" as the name of the location, it is useful to treat each labelled suspension file which contains possibly relevant documents as a separate "location" - e.g. 'Mr Jones' file in my filing cabinet. Scan in each physical document of interest, from each of the locations you have identified, as a separate PDF, giving it a suitable name such as 2021-05-19 Letter Smith to Jones.pdf and save it in the appropriate sub-folder representing the location it came from. After scanning, put the physical documents back exactly where they came from. For example if you have an envelope containing a letter together with documents enclosed with that letter, put them back in the envelope and put the envelope back where it came from. Take care to preserve original documents. You are only scanning in paper documents of interest, not necessarily every paper document in a location, but if you do happen to get to the point of having scanned in all the paper documents from a particular location, because every one of them happens to be of interest - or because 95% can be immediately recognised as of interest and it is just easier to scan them all - you can add “(complete)” to the name of the sub-folder - e.g. Box of papers from the attic labelled "house purchase" (complete).
One reason for storing copies of paper documents in sub-folders according to the location which they came from is to save you time later on when you are copying further paper documents from the same location. For example if you are scanning further documents in the Box of papers from the attic labelled "house purchase" you can check which documents from that location you already have PDF scans for in the relevant location sub-folder, so that you don't need to rescan those particular documents.
Note: normally all electronic documents on a mobile device are easy to copy and so for every location on a mobile device which may contain files of interest, you will have copied every electronic document from that location to the Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location, and from there copied selected messages, but there might be some electronic documents of a type which cannot be so easily copied - for example SMS messages which have to be copied by making screenshots - and in that case you should treat them as a separate "location" and, like locations containing paper documents, identify individual messages of interest and take screenshots of them saving them in a sub-folder within the Selected own docs by location folder without first copying them to Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location.
If you have in recent years been storing arriving documents in yearly Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received... email folders, create a subfolder within Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location for each year named Docs and corr in 202X email folder so that you can copy selected emails to those sub-folders. To copy an email, first download it as an EML file.
If you have recently obtained documents from a public register, such as H.M. Land Registry or Companies House, storing them in a Right of Way Legal Dispute 202X email folder as email attachments to a DOCUMENTS DOWNLOADED from... email, you should create a subfolder within Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location named e.g. Recently obtained from Land Registry and store the relevant downloaded documents there in the form they were downloaded - usually PDFs.
Although it depends, to a certain extent, on the type of legal proceedings, during the course of most legal proceedings is usual for parties to provide each other with copies of relevant documents at the following stages:-
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 a court or other tribunal) or as part of a Land Registry application (before it is referred to a tribunal).
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 sent
4. Supplementary disclosure - occasionally a document is missed at stage 3 - so it is disclosed later when it comes to light
You should store documents disclosed by the other side (at any of the disclosure stages), in whatever form they are received, in the Docs as disclosed by the other side folder. If the other side does not use a consistent format you might need to create sub-folders within the Docs as disclosed by the other side folder one for each stage at which documents are disclosed so that it is clear, looking back, what was disclosed when.
It is important to keep track and not get confused between your own documents - which may include documents such as letters sent by the other side to you in the past in the ordinary course of events - and documents disclosed to you as part of litigation. The latter should be stored in the Docs as disclosed by the other side folder and not in any "own docs" folders. To make sure there is no confusion, when you get to the point where you consider that you are at the start of stage 1 above, don't store any documents and correspondence sent to you by the other side (or sent by you to the other side, or correspondence with third parties) in the Right of Way Issue - docs and corr sent and received in 202X email folder but, instead, create a new folder in your email system named e.g. Right of Way Legal Dispute 202X and store them there.
The copy documents you have in the Selected own docs by location sub-folders are documents of interest you selected with a view to looking further at them and ultimately confirming whether or not they are relevant to the issues in dispute in the case and so should, at the appropriate time, be disclosed. Most documents you selected will probably turn out to be relevant but some you might eventually decide are not relevant after all.
You should copy all the relevant documents in the Selected own docs by location sub-folders into the All relevant selected docs renamed folder, at the same time renaming them in the target folder as necessary to ensure that they have a standardised concise format starting with the date in yyyy-mm-dd format, such as 2024-10-15 Letter Smith to Jones.pdf
Every time you identify further relevant documents in the Initial Copies of own electronic documents by location folder, you should first copy them to the appropriate subfolder within the Selected own docs by location folder before then copying them to the All relevant selected docs renamed folder (renaming them in the taget folder). Likewise as you identify further relevant paper documents you should scan them in and save them in the appropriate sub-folder within the Selected own docs by location folder before then copying them to the All relevant selected docs renamed folder.
Some documents of interest may be purely "train of enquiry" documents: the document is not actually relevant to the issues in dispute (it does not tend to show who may be right on any disputed issue) but contains information which gives a clue where to look for other documents or information which might be relevant. Such "train of enquiry" documents should be copied to the Positive train of enquiry docs renamed folder (see below), renaming them as appropriate in the target folder (see below). Most documents which were originally of interest but which turn out not to be relevant to disputed issues will be "train of enquiry" documents. Sometimes this is only because they help in a negative way by eliminating one thing which might have been relevant but turned out not to be. These documents should be copied to the Negative train of enquiry docs renamed folder (see below), renaming them as appropriate in the target folder. But if you find a document in a Selected own docs by location sub-folder which is essentially there by mistake (it is not relevant, not a "train of enquiry" document in any sense, and there was never any reason to think it might be of interest) it would not be copied at all.
If and when you come to one of the four "disclosure of documents" stages (explained above), you would allocate a disclosure number to each document you are about to disclose and then rename it in the All relevant selected docs renamed folder into the form R-25 Letter Smith to Jones 15-10-2024 (this example assumes you are the Respondent) before sending it to the other side. The reason for having the date at the end in dd-mm-yyyy format is that this format is easier for humans to read and, because you now have the allocated disclosure number at the start of the filename, you don't need the date at the start in yyyy-mm-dd format to ensure that the files appear in order. Documents will be in chronological order before being renamed to include the disclosure number, so, if you number them in the same order, they will remain in chronological order. There may be a group of documents which naturally go together so you might choose, for example, to number all photos first in chronological order, followed by all other documents in chronological order. If, just as you are completing the numbering process, you come across one or two extra relevant document which you had previously overlooked, you don't have to slavishly renumber the documents you have already numbered, you can just use the next number. The fact that there is more than one disclosure stage inevitably means that the ordering by number of disclosed documents will not be perfect: the important thing is that once a party has assigned a number and sent out the document with that number, the number should not be changed.
Whenever documents are disclosed by the other side and stored in the Docs as disclosed by the other side folder you should copy them to the All relevant selected docs renamed folder, at the same time renaming them as necessary so that the copy in the latter folder is in the form e.g. A-23 Letter Jones to Phillips 10-12-2025 (this example assumes the other side is the Applicant).
To rename documents in the All relevant selected docs renamed folder you can use the following methods:
Rename each document manually to have a concise name using the normal computer rename function or using a program such as Advanced Renamer.
Load documents to a document management system such as Bundledocs or Litigation Ready and then download them (or you could decide to keep them in the document management system instead of using a All relevant selected docs renamed folder on your computer, so that you only need to download them later on), or
If you consult a barrister and send copies of documents with their original names to the barrister for an Opinion you may find that the barrister sends back, with their written Opinion, renamed copies of those documents referred to in the Opinion.
So, in summary, the documents in the All relevant selected docs renamed folder are initially named in the form 2024-10-15 Letter Smith to Jones.pdf and each one, having been disclosed, will have its name changed to the form R-25 Letter Smith to Jones 15-10-2024 so that by the time all stages of disclosure have been completed, all documents in the folder are named in the latter form, except for:
The signed statements of your witnesses which, by convention, are not given disclosure numbers and are instead identified by the name of the witness, the date the statement was signed, and whether it is the first, second, etc statement made for the case. They are generally not exchanged with the other side until a later stage after the last disclosure of documents stage.
The statements of case
The signed reports of experts engaged for the proceedings (they are generally not exchanged with the other side until a later stage after witness statements have been exchanged) and supplementary reports, written answers to questions posed, and any joint statement agreed between experts.
Note re disclosure:
Any document voluntarily disclosed to you by the other side during stage 1 disclosure would normally be sent again by the other side during stage 2 or stage 3. But occasionally this might not happen. One purpose of pre-action correspondence is to try to find out if the other side has any argument in their favour which might mean that they are likely to win on a matter in dispute. As a result of pre-action correspondence a party might decide to commence litigation only over one limited aspect in dispute and that might mean that they regard some documents voluntarily disclosed as no longer relevant given the more limited nature of the dispute. Hence although they sent a document voluntarily at stage 1, they might not formally disclose it again within the disclosure ordered by the tribunal at stages 2 and 3. But you might nevertheless take the view that the document still is relevant and so you yourself want to disclose it as a document you will rely on, even if you did not have it originally. In that case - if you are disclosing a document you did not originally have - you would include the document in your disclosure (generally at stage 4 because it is only then that you know that the other side is not going to formally disclose it at stage 3) but in such a way that it is clear that you only have a copy of the document because the other side sent it to you recently as part of the prelude to legal proceedings. The simplest way to make this clear is to disclose the document, together with the letter from the other side which enclosed it, all as one PDF named e.g. R-51 Letter Jones to Phillips 10-12-2025 (as disclosed pre-action by Applicant)
There will be some documents which you have obtained which help with your research but do not actually (either by themselves or with other documents) shed any light on which side is correct on any disputed issue, nor provide any background information which might assist any tribunal at the final hearing. For example you might have received from the Land Registry an email message which lists all the documents filed under a particular title number. The list itself does not prove anything but it helps to find the documents listed some of which may shed light on disputed issues. So the list is a "train of enquiry" document which should be stored here renamed as e.g. 2025-10-15 Email Land Registry to Smith.eml Also it may be that some information in that document - perhaps a reference to another title number - is helpful to you in searching for other documents.
It used to be the case that some tribunals would order "train of enquiry" documents to be disclosed during litigation, and that still sometimes happens, but normally a tribunal will only order those documents to be disclosed which actually shed light on disputed issues - not documents which only assist in finding such documents. So the reason for keeping renamed copies of such documents in a special folder is simply to assist you in your search for other documents which may be relevant.
Some documents may help searching only because they help in a negative way by eliminating one thing which might have been relevant but turned out not to be. For example documents you might store here might include documents you have obtained from the Land Registry which turn out to be irrelevant to the issues in dispute. Assuming that a document has not been acquired due to a pure clerical mistake - such as typing in a wrong digit in a title number when requesting a document - then it is likely to be of some use the next time you are deciding what documents to request which might be relevant, because you at least know not to request that document because you already have a copy and you know it is not relevant. Such documents should be stored in to the Negative train of enquiry docs renamed folder, renamed as appropriate.
The WOP docs folder contains two sub-folders:
Without Prejudice Except as to costs docs - This contains all "Without prejudice except as to costs" offers and responses, all "Without prejudice save as to costs" offers and responses, Calderbank Letters, Calderbank Offers, and Part 36 offers and responses. These cannot be included in the eventual Final Hearing Bundle and are stored in this special folder to ensure that copies are not mistakenly included. They can be shown to the judge after the judge's decision has been announced as they may be relevant to the question of who should pay costs.
Without Prejudice docs - This contains offers and responses which are simply "without prejudice" (rather than "without prejudice except as to costs"). These cannot be included in the eventual Final Hearing Bundle and, indeed, cannot be shown to the judge at any stage, and are stored in this special folder to ensure that copies are not mistakenly included.
written advice from your barrister or any other lawyer and correspondence with your barrister or other lawyer is privileged (unless transaction correspondence some of which may not be privileged) and is stored in a sub-folder named e.g. Legal Advice to ensure that copies are not mistakenly sent to the other side and not mistakenly included in the Final Hearing Bundle.
Emails from potential witnesses who have been asked what the remember and any notes of or drafts of witness statements would be stored in subfolders, one subfolder for each witness.
Communications
Note that any photos you take for the purposes of the litigation are privileged but many of these you will want to use in the proceedings - you can send copies to the other side as part of disclosure of documents thereby waiving privilege. Such photos are not stored in this folder: copies of photos will be in subfolders within the Initial copies of own docs by location folder and selected photos of interest - which may include some privileged photos which you may want to include (thus waiving privilege) will be copied from there to sub-folders in the Selected own docs by location folder.
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