How to Create a Final Hearing Bundle

Introduction - What is a Final Hearing Bundle?

At the Final Hearing in a civil case where witnesses are questioned, documentary evidence is received and each side's barrister has an opportunity to address arguments to the judge - sometimes known as the Trial - the documents which the judge and the parties will refer to are contained in a "electronic bundle" - a large PDF containing a bookmark for each document within it often called an "eBundle". A hardcopy of the PDF may be used as well.

Traditionally, in the past, documents such as witness statements, letters, contracts, photographs, etc, some originals and come copies, were bound up together in a bundle called a Trial Bundle. Nowadays an eBundle is used either directly or in hardcopy.

Some tribunals have official published detailed rules or practice directions about the layout of Bundles, perhaps supplemented by published "guidance" (such as the Chancery Guide issued by the Chancery Division of the High Court) whilst other tribunals (such as the First-tier Tribunal, Property Chamber, Land Registration Division) may say little or nothing in their published rules and rely on the individual judge in the individual case giving detailed directions for that particular case. But even where individual directions are given in each case they are not usually based on a standard template with particular deadline dates filled in. And although each tribunal sets its own requirements they do tend to follow a common pattern for a Final Hearing Bundle. There are some types of hearing where a rather different layout applies - for example at an interim hearing held at short notice to determine some provisional matter (such as whether a party should be restrained from taking certain action pending determination of a dispute at the final hearing) or an appeal hearing (where normally the appeal is decided by reviewing the conduct and decision of the tribunal below rather than by completely rehearing the case) but for the Final Hearing at first instance ("trial") for a case following the normal procedure for civil disputes, the layout of the Final Hearing Bundle is usually broadly as described below.

Bookmarks, Index, and hyperlinks

The judge and each party's barrister at the final hearing have identical copies of the Bundle. There will also be a hardcopy for the use of witnesses when giving evidence. When a witness giving evidence is asked to look at a particular page, the parties' barristers and the judge can easily and quickly refer to the same page in their copies.  

Every document within the PDF has a bookmark giving a brief description of the document and its date but you need to know where to start looking in the bookmarks pane sidebar and the eBundle will be arranged in several sections with documents arranged chronologically within each section to make it easy to find the document you want.

Pages of documents are referred to at the hearing by bundle page number. A witness will be asked by the barrister questioning them to turn to a particular page and everyone else then knows what page to look at. Each user of an eBundle can type the page number into the PDF viewer but it is sometimes easier to scroll down the bookmarks pane so, to facilitate this, each bookmark should contain, as well as the document description and date, the starting page number of the document.

Where a statement within an eBundle refers to a document, there should be a click-able link to the document.

The user of a hardcopy of the Bundle cannot use bookmarks or hyperlinks and cannot find pages by typing in a page number so there are some additional markings in the Bundle designed particularly with hardcopy users in mind. The page number of each page is imprinted at the bottom right of the page and if the hardcopy is, as is usual, in more than one volume there should be labels on the volumes indicating which page ranges each volume contains. It is, of course, important that the imprinted page number matches the PDF page number (e.g. the 300th page in the PDF must be imprinted with 300) with every page, including index and section title pages, numbered consecutively. The main Index, which by convention is at the start of the bundle contains the same basic information as the bookmarks - document description, document date, and page number - but with information laid out in columns. It is mainly designed for users of the hardcopy but may occasionally be consulted by users of the eBundle in preference to the bookmarks pane. Users of the eBundle generally prefer to use the bookmarks pane sidebar because it can be scrolled independently of the main pane displaying pages, but when first looking at the eBundle, to get an overview of its size and contents, the Index, set out in columns, may be preferred to the bookmarks pane sidebar. Also if you are looking for a particular document, and you cannot find it in the position you expect so that you need to look right through from the beginning, it may be easier to use the Index laid out in columns than to scan right through the bookmarks pane sidebar. Every entry in the Index is a clickable link. 

Typical arrangement of sections in an Final Hearing Bundle

As explained above it is important that the documents are arranged in the bundle in logical order so that the index/bookmarks (which, of course, list them in the same order) are easy to use - i.e. it should be possible to guess roughly where a document is likely to appear in the index or bookmarks pane so that, in most instances, it is not necessary to look all the way though a long index or series of bookmarks. So, after the Index, a final hearing bundle would typically be arranged like this: 

Section A - Statements of Case These are documents drafted by each party's barrister which set out concisely, and often in a somewhat technical legal manner, what each party alleges. This section will also contain orders or directions issued by the tribunal about preparation for or conduct of the final hearing if those orders/directions might need to be referred to at the hearing. Any notices about evidence which a party has served - for example a notice in which a party challenges the authenticity of a document the other party wishes to rely on - may also be in this section.  The title of this section can be a brief summary of the main types of document it contains. For example if there are no notices and the directions are in letter rather than "order" form, it could be named Statements of Case and Directions.  

Section B - Applicants' Witness Statements. Normally the Applicant's (or Claimant's) own witness statement first and then the statements of the Applicant's/Claimant's other witnesses in alphabetical order of witness surname or some other convenient order. If there are two or more statements from the same witness to be included in the Bundle they should appear one after the other, the earlier one first.

Section C - Respondents' Witness Statements.  Normally the Respondent's (or Defendant's) own witness statement first and then the statements of the Respondent's/Defendant's other witnesses in alphabetical order of witness surname or some other convenient order. If there are two or more statements from the same witness to be included in the Bundle they should appear one after the other, the earlier one first.

Section D - Expert Reports. Reports by experts (e.g. engineer, surveyor) specifically for these proceedings would be in a separate section together with any appendices attached to the reports.

Section E - Documentary Evidence. This section is usually the largest part of the final hearing bundle. It contains all the documents referred to in statements of case and in witness statements together with any other documents which either side wishes to rely on at the hearing. Having the documentary evidence section right at the end means that, in any hardcopy, if desired the statements can be in the first hardcopy volume and the documents referred to can be in the second or subsequent volumes so that it is possible to have a page of a statement, and a page of a document referred to in that statement, both open simultaneously.    

Most proceedings are concerned with past events (past events which may affect current legal rights) so the documentary evidence section usually consists of documentary evidence which came into existence in the ordinary course of events in the past (such as photos, letters, purchase orders, invoices, written agreements, emails etc.) which tend to help to prove where the truth lies on any issue in dispute, arranged chronologically. 

Having a single chronological run of documents, whether contract, purchase order, invoice, letter, email etc. so that the sequence of events can be appreciated is typical but sometimes there will be good reason for having some documents of a particular category in a separate documentary evidence section. For example sometimes photographs are included in chronological sequence with all the other documents in a single documentary evidence section, but sometimes it is more appropriate to have a separate section just for photos. Depending what the case is about the photos may show not events but rather the state of land which changes gradually over a number of years. In this case it is usually more helpful to have all the photos together in their own section (in chronological order) rather than having  them included in a single section with other documents. In a case concerning the rights of different property owners, it may be appropriate to have formal title deeds in a section by themselves (or a section for each property). So rather than having a single Documentary Evidence section there may be several documentary evidence sections like this:

Photos

Title Deeds

Other Documents

with the Other Documents section being the main chronological documentary evidence section.

Other examples where it might be appropriate to have a separate section for a certain group of evidential documents might include the situation where there are a large number of bank statements to be included. If selected bank statements are included in the bundle in order to prove that specific payments were made or received then those 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 that set of bank statements in chronological order might be more appropriate.

If there is any video or audio evidence for the hearing this section would contain a single-page placeholder for each video or audio file. The video/audio files themselves would need to be provided separately at the hearing if they are to be played but the placeholders ensure that they are not overlooked.

Arrangement of sub-documents

If the hearing bundle contains copies of any letters with enclosures then the enclosures are arranged as sub-documents of the main letter document. The same applies to individual documents within a composite document such as an Epitome of Title document (which consists of a schedule followed by copies of all the documents listed in the schedule). Identifying documents as sub-documents of a main document is generally done by giving each sub-document a bookmark which is a sub-bookmark of the main document's bookmark. In the index each sub-document is indented. 

Including only necessary documents 

To some extent the judge will rely on the barristers at the hearing to refer to individual documents in the Bundle as the hearing proceeds but, in addition, the judge may read at least some documents in advance, and/or during adjournments, and if there are a large number of unnecessary documents in the Final Hearing Bundle - documents which are not relevant to the particular issues in dispute which the judge is to decide - time is wasted. So only documents which will need to be referred to at the Final Hearing should be included.

The litigation process itself can generate a lot of correspondence. There may be much inter-partes correspondence and there may be interim applications by either party to the tribunal for matters such as seeking permission for the use of expert evidence, or seeking a temporary injunction to preserve the status quo pending the final hearing. A interim application for a temporary injunction would normally require witness statements to be produced for (and in response to) that interim application. Sometimes some items of inter-partes correspondence and/or interim application forms/witness statements accompanying them produced by the litigation process itself need to be in the Final Hearing Bundle because they are relevant to the particular issues which the judge is to decide at the final hearing, but usually most such items, whilst they served their purpose at the time, are not relevant for the Final Hearing and so ought not to be included in the Bundle.    

Avoiding duplication

Time is also wasted if there is more than one copy of the same document in the Bundle. When reading through the Final Hearing Bundle if the reader comes across a document which they think is the same as a document they have read elsewhere in the Bundle they may then feel they need to try to locate the copy they have already read and compare it, to check that it really is the same, before deciding whether or not they need to read through the copy they have just come across. This wastes time. Also sometimes the reader will be looking at a chronologically arranged section and be asking themselves questions such "are the photos on this range of pages a complete set of all the photos taken between 2012 and 2015?". If the reader is aware that there are other photos elsewhere in another section of the Bundle they may feel that they have to locate them just to check that they are duplicates of ones in the range already found and not additional to them. That also takes time. So duplication should generally be avoided.

When a witness is making and signing their statement, they will have in front of them a copy of each document they refer to in the statement. They will identify the document by description and usually also by a prefixed number - e.g. "...the letter I sent him on 25th March 2024: I refer to the letter marked PMJ21". The prefixed number might be in the form PMJ21 (the 21st document referred to in the statement of Paula Mary Jones) or in the form R12 (the 12th document listed in the Respondent's statement of case). As a consequence of seeking to avoid duplication, and of placing a single copy of each document in its logical position, a copy of each document referred to in a statement will not immediately follow the statement in the bundle: a single copy will be in the appropriate position in a chronological section elsewhere within the bundle. This means that steps need to be taken to allow the user, when reading through a statement within the bundle, to quickly turn to each document referred to. So wherever a document is referred to in a statement, the prefixed number quoted is hyperlinked to the copy of the document wherever it is in the bundle. Use of a prefixed number is particularly important with photos, or other documents which do not have a date shown on them, in order to ensure that there is no misunderstanding about which document is being referred to by the witness., but quoting a prefixed number is desirable in all cases because it makes it easy to automate hyperlinking. 

Additional steps need to be taken for users of the hardcopy and typically the bundle page number of the referred-to document is imprinted in the right hand margin of the page of the statement directly opposite the hyperlink.

The prefixed reference number(s) of each document referred to in each statement should be stated in the referred-to document's entry in the Index. For example a particular letter in the bundle might be referred to in different ways in different statements - the statement of John James Smith might refer to it as JJS32, the statement of Paula Mary Jones might refer to it as PMJ21, a statement of case might refer to it as ASC26 and a statement of case might refer to it as R32. So all those references - JJS32, PMJ21 ASC26 and R12-  should appear in the index entry for the document. It is useful if the way a document is referred to in statements is also imprinted at the foot of each page of the copy of the document which has been selected to be included in the bundle. The copy of the document which has been selected to be in the bundle will usually be the clearest copy but see here for a more detailed discussion about the copy to select. 

Avoidance of duplication may also mean that in the bundle some email attachments are replaced by a note indicating where another copy of the attached document may be found elsewhere in the bundle, but in this case the goal of avoiding unnecessary duplication has to be balanced against the desirability of documents sent attached to an email being presented in the bundle immediately after the email message for ease of reference. So it is important to keep a sense of proportion. For example in the case of a letter which encloses a copy of a long document dated earlier (such as a 200 page report dated earlier) a copy of which is already elsewhere in the bundle, a copy of the report should not generally follow the letter in the bundle but, instead, there should be, immediately following the email/letter, a note stating the bundle page number where a copy of the report may be found.  But if the letter instead of a 200 page enclosure had a 10 page document enclosed, a copy of that 10 page enclosure should obviously follow the letter in the normal way rather than there being a note replacing it, even though this is a small duplication. And even if there are five letters, each attaching the same 10 page report, it would probably still be better to leave them in place rather than replacing them with notes.  

Practicalities of the bundle production process 

The three stages of Final Hearing Bundle production

The process of producing the Bundle can be conveniently divided into three overall stages:

A. Agreeing with the other side which documents are to be included - this stage may involve one or more iterations producing unpaginated drafts of the eBundle.

B. Producing a final draft eBundle with documents arranged in their final positions and with final fixed page numbering imprinted on each page. The reason for this stage is that although the software used to produce an eBundle can typically automate the process to a large extent by automatically re-paginating as new documents are added, there are nearly always some finishing touches to be done some of which may require page number references to be "hard wired". As the finishing touches may take some time to do (and so would take some time to redo if page numbers changed) it is important to have a point in time at which it is understood by everyone that page numbers are then fixed and will not change. 

C. Producing the final eBundle complete with all "finishing touches" (such as, for example, statements annotated in the right hand margin with the bundle page number of each document referred to).  

Timetable for agreeing the Final Hearing Bundle with the other side

Using the above three stages as a framework you (if you are the party producing the Bundle) need to make a plan with the other side and suggest some deadlines for the Bundle production process. The exact plan may vary depending on whether you will initiate the process by sending a first draft of the eBundle followed by the other side requesting additional documents to be included, or whether the other side is to initiate the process by first sending you a list of documents they require. So the following may need to be agreed:  

If the other side will initiate the process 

1. Date by which the other side need to tell you what documents they require to be included in the Bundle

2. Date by which you will be sending the first draft of the unpaginated eBundle to the other side

3. Date by which you will be sending a final draft of the eBundle with final fixed page numbers imprinted. 

4. Date by which you will send the final eBundle PDF (and also, if appropriate, a hardcopy) with all "finishing touches" to the other side and to the tribunal office.

If you will initiate the process

1. When you will be sending the first draft of the unpaginated eBundle to the other side

2. Date by which the other side need to tell you what additional documents they require to be included in the eBundle

3. Date by which you will be sending a further unpaginated draft eBundle with the above documents included

4. Date by which you will be sending a final draft of the eBundle with final fixed page numbers imprinted. 

5.Date by which you will send the final eBundle PDF (and also, if appropriate, a hardcopy) with all "finishing touches" to the other side and to the tribunal office.

To the extent that you have a choice it is generally better if the other side does not initiate the process in case they are less efficient than you and do not clearly identify the documents they require. If you initiate the process you have the opportunity to send them both a draft eBundle containing  the documents you have already identified as being needed, and a list of all other disclosed documents so that the other side can simply identify to you on that list the extra documents they require.

The rules of the tribunal and/or practice directions or the specific directions given by a tribunal for the particular case will invariably specify at least the deadline  for the last step in the process (date by which you will send the final bundle to the other side and to the tribunal office) but it may be left to the parties to liaise over the effective deadlines for some or all of the earlier steps, the directions perhaps simply including a general direction that the parties are to co-operate in the production of the Final Hearing Bundle. To the extent that the tribunal has not set a deadline for a particular step in the process of producing the Bundle, you, the party directed to be responsible for producing the Bundle, need to plan the deadlines. The tribunal expects the parties to co-operate so you should show some flexibility but you need to take the lead in proposing deadlines and not letting matters slide. So, for example, 12 weeks before the date fixed for the final hearing, you could send an email to the other side saying

As the party with primary responsibility for producing the Final Hearing Bundle, I plan to send you a draft eBundle in about 4 weeks time, that is to say by [date], 8 weeks before the final hearing on [date], for your comments/agreement. If you wish you can send me before then a list of the documents you wish to be included in the eBundle (which, of course, can only be documents already disclosed) and I should be able to incorporate those in this first draft. But you will probably find it more convenient to wait to receive the first draft from me and then tell me what additional documents you wish to be included and I can send a second draft. The first draft eBundle will be accompanied by a list of disclosed documents not so far included so you can simply indicate any extra documents you require and I will send a second draft accordingly. I would suggest that we set a date of 2 weeks after I send you the first draft - i.e. [date] - for you to get back to me with any request for further documents to be added and I will then add those documents as promptly as possible - generally within 3 days - and generate a further unpaginated draft and send that to you. Following that - probably within about 3 days - I will send you a final draft eBundle. This eBundle will have final fixed page numbers imprinted on each page and the index will identify which documents are the exhibits referred to in statements so that you can double-check this. The deadline for exchange of skeleton arguments is [date] and I would plan to provide you with the eBundle in its final form with target page numbers for exhibit marks marked in the right hand margin of statements [together with one hardcopy], not later than two weeks before then - i.e. by [date].   

"Not letting matters slide" may mean that if the other side fails to respond to your requests you might need (after giving due warning) to make some unilateral decisions about the bundle so as not to prejudice your ability to provide it on time in accordance with the tribunal's directions. Except perhaps in extreme cases the tribunal will be reluctant to intervene at the time of the bundle production process by giving detailed directions so, if the other side is being unhelpful, normally you just have to do the best you can in good faith to produce a bundle which includes the documents which will be needed at  the Final Hearing . You know that the other side's statement of case and witness statements, and every document referred to in them, will need to be included, for example, and you may be able to make a good guess as to which other documents the other side is likely to need based on the assertions and arguments in their statement of case. In this situation, where the other side is being uncooperative, you should write, and then include in the Bundle, letters/emails to the other side sufficient to demonstrate that you did give the other side the opportunity to specify the documents they wished to be included and that, in the absence of an adequate response, you did take reasonable decisions to keep the bundle production process on track. For example you might write:

On [date] I wrote to you proposing timescales for the process of producing the Final Hearing Bundle, and proposing that by [date] you would tell me what [further] documents you wished to be included. You have failed to respond despite my following up on [date] and [date] and, given the shortness of time, I must now proceed to finalise which documents will be in the eBundle. I have added every document referred to in your statements and I have to work on the assumption that there are no further documents you wish to rely on. Please see the  final draft index attached to this email. The full final draft eBundle can be downloaded using this link...

Note about other types of bundle which may also be needed at the Final Hearing

The general idea is that the Final Hearing Bundle should contain all the statements and all the evidential documents which the tribunal will be asked to consider, all in one bookmarked PDF. If a supplementary bundle is needed containing extra statements or extra evidential documents that will not be by design but because documents have inadvertently been missed out of the Final Hearing Bundle.

However, as an exception to the principle (the principle that the Final Hearing Bundle should, by design, be in a single PDF), the tribunal may direct that there should be, in addition, a Core Bundle which is a cut-down version of the Final Hearing Bundle containing selected key documents from the Final Hearing Bundle.

There may be a Costs Bundle if the tribunal is one which may wish to deal, in whole or in part, with the question of awarding costs at the Final Hearing - rather than dealing with costs by means of written submissions later on (or by means of a further short hearing on a later occasion).

There may be an Authorities Bundle, containing legal "authorities" such as sections of Acts of Parliament, or cases decided by higher tribunals which set or confirm legal rules ("precedents"). This is separate from the Final Hearing Bundle because the authorities are selected by each party's barrister. (The Final Hearing Bundle and any Core Bundle are not generally produced by barristers - although each party will often ask their barrister to advise about what they should contain - but by the parties, or by their solicitors if they have solicitors.)

In addition a tribunal will typically  direct that the barristers representing each party should each produce a "skeleton argument" document and that they should, if possible, agree and produce certain agreed summary documents such as a "chronology". These are generally supplied as separate PDFs rather than being incorporated in a bundle.  

Automating the process of producing bundles 

To produce an authorities bundle it is usual to simply have the authorities documents in folders on a computer and to use PDF software to produce the bundle. When using this method, if the first draft bundle is not quite right it does require redoing several steps to produce another version but an authorities bundle rarely contains more than 30 documents and so is not difficult to get right right first time or almost first time.

A Final Hearing Bundle, on the other hand, will typically contain hundreds of documents and is more complex to produce and for this you need to use a document management system/bundle production system specifically designed for litigation such as Bundledocs or eBrief Ready. Such systems allow fresh drafts to be produced quickly thus facilitating the more iterative approach which is necessary for a Final Hearing Bundle. 

The procedure you use to produce the Final Hearing Bundle has to ensure that:

• Pages are numbered consecutively and the numbering always matches the PDF page number - i.e. the 90th page in the PDF must be numbered 90. 

• One copy of all documents which will be needed at the Final Hearing are included.

• As far as possible irrelevant documents are excluded.

• Duplicate copies of documents are excluded.

• The included documents are arranged in logical order, usually chronologically.

• Where statements (both the statements of case and the statements of witnesses) refer to documents it should to be easy for the reader of the statement to go to the page in the bundle where each document is located.

• There should be a list ("index") of every document in the bundle with its page number, in page number order.

• The above two points (statement references to documents and an ordered list of all documents) should be implemented in such a way that they can be used by hardcopy users as well as eBundle users - i.e. an Index as well as bookmarks, and page number annotation as well as hyperlinking.

The same system used to produce the Final Hearing Bundle will typically have an option to produce a Core Bundle and can also be used to produce any Costs Bundle required.

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. 

Any information about specific computer techniques is provided for information purposes only and you should satisfy yourself, before using any techniques, software or services mentioned, that the techniques are appropriate for your purposes and that the software or service is reliable.

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 April 2025          Disclaimer