During the process of litigation each side will, at various stages, send copies of documents to the other side. Typically each party will send copies of key documents with its Statement of Case at the start of the litigation process. Then later, at the Disclosure of Documents stage, each party will send copies of further relevant documents in their possession. Some time after that the parties will exchange witness statements and each witness's statement will generally be accompanied by copies of the documents it refers to as exhibits.
During this process copies of some documents will be sent more than once. For example some of the key document copies sent with the Applicant's statement of case are likely to be the same as some key documents copies sent with the Respondent's statement of case. Similarly some of the document copies exchanged by the parties at the Disclosure of Documents stage will be the same. And each document copy exhibited by a witness statement is likely to have been already sent during the Disclosure of Documents stage and/or with Statements of Case. In addition some documents are likely to be exhibited by more than one witness.
But when the Final Hearing Bundle is produced towards the end of the litigation process the aim is to avoid duplication so generally there will be only a single copy of those documents which are chosen to be included in it. This is where document "aliases" come in. The various copies of the same document which are sent out during the litigation process will have different references. So a copy of a Conveyance dated 9 September 1982 may be exhibited by the witness John James Smith with an exhibit mark of JJS23 and another copy of the same document may be exhibited by Paula Anne Jenkins with an exhibit mark of PAJ9. It might be that a copy of that same document was a key document accompanying the Applicant's statement of case as exhibit A10, and a copy might have been disclosed by the Respondent at the Disclosure of Documents stage. If there is to be only one copy of that document in the Final Hearing Bundle then that one copy needs to be flagged in some way with all the references which refer to it - JJS23, PAJ9, and A10 and these are collectively known as "aliases".
Flagging with aliases is necessary because, for example, when someone is reading John James Smith's witness statement in the Final Hearing Bundle and they come across a mention of the exhibit mark JJS23 they need to be able to locate a copy of that document in the Bundle. The actual copy marked JJS23 may not be the one copy selected for inclusion but whichever copy is selected for inclusion must have JJS23 indicated as one of its aliases.
Exactly how you tell the bundle production software you are using what a document copy's aliases are depends on which system you are using. Some systems use a spreadsheet listing each document copy in the system with columns headed Alias 1, Alias 2, Alias 3, etc. Other systems have a single field for each document in which multiple aliases can be entered separated by spaces.
Here are some examples:
Date Document Description Alias 1 Alias 2 Explanation
24 Aug 2024 Letter Smith to Jones R5 JJS23 This copy was provided with the Respondent's statement of case - exhibit mark R5.
JJS23 is the exhibit mark of a witness exhibit copy of the same document which has not been loaded (or is in an excluded folder).
16 Sep 2024 Letter Phillips to More JJS10 This copy was disclosed by the Applicant (with a disclosure list).
JJS10 is the exhibit mark of a witness exhibit copy of the same document which has not been loaded.
9 Oct 2024 Letter Baker to Miller This copy was disclosed by the Applicant (with a disclosure list).
10 Oct 2024 Letter Miller to Baker This copy was disclosed by the Respondent (with a disclosure list).
Note that although normally the clearest copy of a document is selected to be the single copy which is included there are some exceptional circumstances where the actual copy exhibited by a statement is very specific to the statement and needs to be included flagged with the alias used by that statement (and with its Document Description prefixed with the exhibit mark to indicate that it is the actual exhibit copy) and another copy of the same document needs to be included as well flagged with the other aliases.
Example 1
You are sending a witness statement to the other side. It is accompanied by a copy of a document with an exhibit label of JJS23. A copy of the same document is already in your document management system having been previously disclosed and It has no aliases. You do not load the JJS23 copy but you enter JJS23 in the Alias 1 field of the copy of the document already loaded.
Example 2
Later you receive a witness statement from the other side which is accompanied by a copy of the same document as in example 1 but with an exhibit label of PAJ9. The PAJ9 copy is actually a clearer copy of the document than the copy currently in your system so you load it and add PAJ9 as Alias 1 and JJS23 as Alias 2. You then delete the previous copy from your document management system (or move it to some kind of "excluded" folder so that it will not appear in the generated Final Hearing Bundle).
If you are using the Bundledocs system then you would use the standard field Custom Text for aliases.
If you are using the eBrief Ready system then the aliases are added to a spreadsheet, each alias in a separate column named Alias 1, Alias 2, Alias 3, etc.
Disclaimer
This information page is designed to be used by clients of John Antell who have entered into a written agreement for the provision of legal services.
Any explanation about naming conventions or other matters in the context of legal procedure is only an overview and in order to be reasonably concise I have had to leave some details out - details which are likely to affect what the procedural law would say about your own situation. Also, even as an overview, the information will not be applicable to every case as procedures vary between different courts and other tribunals and any tribunal may give alternative procedural directions in an individual case. So please do not rely on the above but contact me for advice.
Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the information in this page 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.
This page was lasted updated in May 2025. Disclaimer