It is important that each relevant document introduced into the litigation process is a separate file. For example two letters should not be scanned into a single PDF: each must be in its own PDF named appropriately e.g. Letter Smith to Jones 26 Feb 2020, Letter Jones to Smith 28 Feb 2020. The reason why they need to be in separate files is that they may well need to be arranged in chronlogical order together with other documents so some other document, dated e.g. 27 Feb 2020 might need to be between them. In addition they need to be separately named because in the Final Hearing Bundle that name is used to generate the index and bookmarks - there is one index entry and one bookmark for every document. Also individual documents need to be referred to in the litigation process generally including at the Disclosure of Documents stage.
Document management systems such as Bundledocs and eBrief Ready set the document date, recorded for each document stored in them, automatically for emails (EML/MSG files) and digital photos (JPGs with EXIF data). For other document types if the filename of the document happens to include its date in some form it can sometimes be arranged for the document management system to recognise that date, but often the date of each document needs to be ascertained from the face of the document and then be typed in to the document management system. It can be tempting to try to avoid doing this by loading some documents without specifying document dates but ultimately this is counter-productive because concise descriptions and dates will need to be entered at some point in the litigation process anyway and the sooner this is done the easier it then is to refer to documents from then on in the litigation process.
However there are some, relatively unusual, cases where there are a huge number of documents relevant to what the case is about and there are very large subsets of documents with the document in that subset all being of the same nature - e.g. bank statements for a particular bank account over a number of years. If the documents in the subset are not such that it can be arranged for the document management system to automatically detect dates, so that dates would ordinarily have to be individually typed in then in some limited circumstances it may be acceptable for them to be loaded without specifying document dates and be identified as a group with a concise group description and date range. The circumstances when this is permissible are explained below.
In the eventual Final Hearing Bundle for a case it might be appropriate to have a separate section for a certain group of evidential documents such as a large number of bank statements. If selected bank statements are included in the bundle in order to prove that specific payments were made or received then those individual bank statements would be likely to be included in the main chronological section, but if a complete collection of bank statements for an account over a number of years are to be included in the bundle to show that a particular payment was never received or made, or to show a pattern of regular receipts and payments, or some financial trend, then a separate section containing just a set of bank statements in chronological order over a number of years might be appropriate.
If, in the above example, selected bank statements are included in the bundle then their dates must be shown in the bundle index (and in bookmarks). If a complete collection of bank statements is included then the ideal is that the date of each document should be shown in the bundle index (and in bookmarks) but if there are a very large number of documents of the same nature - bank statements for a particular account in this example - which it is appropriate to have together in a separate section, and if the bank statements are provided with filenames which do not include the date of each statement but are, nevertheless, such that if sorted alphanumerically, they would be in random order but would be in chronological or other logical and useful order, and particularly if each statement has its date on its face, then it is acceptable if the date range is shown in the section name (in index and bookmarks) with the dates of individual bank statements in that section not being shown. This saves having to type in a large number of dates.
Bank statements are a classic case but there may be other situations where there are a large number of documents of the same nature which it is natural to grouped together in the Final Hearing Bundle.
Given that such documents which are naturally grouped in this way will not be split up and placed with other documents if they are included in the Final Hearing bundle, it is acceptable if, at the earlier Disclosure of Documents stage, they are also disclosed as a group - e.g. 520 bank statements relating to account number 12345678 at Grimshaws Bank - May 2011 to April 2021 with individual filenames simply being the original or other convenient filenames not containing the date of the document. Indeed there is an even stronger argument for handling a very large group of documents in this way at the Disclosure of Documents stage because it might be that, although all the documents are disclosed, neither side eventually requires them to be in the Final Hearing Bundle.
Most tribunals require all documents disclosed to be named including their date and to be listed individually. However some tribunals - typically courts which deal with a wide range of types of case including cases with very large quantities of documents - may allow disclosure "by list and category" - i.e. allow a list whose entries are mainly of individual documents but which also contains some group entries. Typically group entries are only allowed where::-
Every document in the group must be of the same nature (e.g. bank statements for account number 12345678 at Grimshaws Bank), and
The number of items in the group must be specified, and
The date range of documents within the group must be specified, and
The specification of the group must be such that it is possible to determine whether any specific document falls within or outside the group. For example you cannot specify 500 weekly bank statements relating to account number 12345678 at Grimshaws Bank - May 2011 to April 2021 because that is not a complete set and you cannot tell from that descriptions which are the missing months. And you cannot specify 20 photos from 1 January 2016 to 31 July 2016 since there are millions of photographs in the world which match that description so that that description does not define the particular 20 photos the disclosing party has in mind.
The following is an example of using the Bundledocs document management system with a group
Create a section for the group - e.g.
24 bank statements relating to account number 12345678 at Grimshaws Bank - May 2021 to April 2022
The individual documents should be within the group section - e.g.
Ref Date Name of document or section
R01 2 Jun 2021 Letter Smith to Jones
R02 3 Jun 2021 Letter Jones to Smith
R03 24 bank statements relating to account number 12345678 at Grimshaws Bank - May 2021 to April 2022
R03a ? Statement 001
R03b ? Statement 002
etc.
To remind you - e.g. when using the Bundledocs desktop - that individual dates of documents within the group have not been filled in accurately you can set them to 1900-01-01. An easy way to do this in bulk is to use the Bundledocs Excel add-in (type in 2 to the DisplayDate field). An alternative is to set the Date Format to blank but that is more difficult to do because that is not a column which appears in the Excel add-in.
In Zip Index Source (Document Name) Description for each document in the group section omit @Date so that the dates (which have not been filled in accurately) do not appear in filenames if and when you generate a ZIP.
You should be able to set the ZIP folder name (to R03) as an option in the group section but this does not always work so you might instead have to actually temporarily rename the section name to R03. If you have had to do this, remember to rename it back to the full name after you have completed the Disclosure of Documents stage.
Before generating the ZIP file at the disclosure of documents stage rename the group section to have just the name of the Ref - e.g.
Ref Date Name of document or section
R01 2 Jun 2021 Letter Smith to Jones
R02 3 Jun 2021 Letter Jones to Smith
R03 R03
R03a ? Statement 001
R03b ? Statement 002
etc.
After you have produced a text file containing a list of documents in the ZIP file, insert the group description in the text file just before the first document in the group like this:
List of Documents
==============
R01 2 Jun 2021 Letter Smith to Jones
R02 3 Jun 2021 Letter Jones to Smith
R03 24 bank statements relating to account number 12345678 at Grimshaws Bank - May 2021 to April 2022
R03/R03a Statement 001
R03/R03b Statement 002
etc.
If the group of documents is to be used in the Final Hearing Bundle or in any other PDF bundle to be used at a hearing then, if practical, the accurate dates should be filled in for each document in the group if it is possible to ascertain the dates. You might have previously considered this to be overkill when you did not even know for certain whether the group of documents would be needed in the Final Hearing Bundle but now that it is clear that they do need to be included, consider setting the dates. If you consider that impractical then Hide on Index should be specified for the sub-documents to prevent inaccurate dates being presented in index and bookmarks. Or Date Format could be set to blank for each sub-document but that is not easy to do in bulk because the Date Format field is not accessible from the Excel spreadsheet.
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.
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. So please do not rely on the above but contact me for advice.
This page was lasted updated in May 2025. Disclaimer