Secure Share

E-Bundle Creation for the Family Division

Due to the rise of remote hearings throughout the pandemic, there was an increase in the usage of electronic bundles during family court cases. Recently there have been some changes to the practice directions that had previously been set out by the President of the Family Division’s Guidance for use in the Family Court and Family Division.

There is no doubt that electronic bundles are the way forward. As courts and firms alike make the move away from paper bundles, the practice directions on electronic bundle creation and delivery are continually evolving and changing.

For those that regularly submit e-bundles to court, it is important to keep up to date with the latest requirements to ensure your bundles are fully compliant with the latest practice directions. Our solution is fully compliant with the updated practice directions, as well as all previous directions. We’ve even created pre-set templates to make it easier for you to create court-compliant e-bundles using Bundledocs.

Let’s look at some of the key requirements from the latest update:

Bookmarks

All significant documents and all sections in bundles must be bookmarked for ease of navigation, with a short description as the bookmark.

Late Inserts

If additions are to be made to an e-bundle after it has been transmitted to the judge, then new pages should be added at the end of the bundle (and paginated accordingly). An enquiry should be made of the court as to the best way of providing the additional material. Subject to any different direction, the judge should be provided with both (a) the new section and, separately, (b) the revised bundle. This is necessary as the judge may have already marked up the original bundle.

Bundle Limit

An e-bundle may only exceed the default limit of 350 pages provided by PD 27A para 5.1 with the court’s permission.

Chronological Order

The documents in the bundle shall be arranged in chronological order from the front of the bundle, paginated individually and consecutively (starting with page 1 and using Arabic numbering throughout), indexed and divided into separate sections with each section being separately paginated.

Landscape Pages

Any page that has been created in landscape orientation should appear in that orientation so that it can be read from left to right. No page should appear upside down within an e-bundle.

Mark Key Documents with an Asterix

Rather than producing a core e-bundle a better method for identifying key documents is to mark them in the index with an asterisk or to list them in a separate hyperlinked list of essential reading placed behind the index.

Filename

The filename for a bundle must contain the case reference, a short version of the name of the case and an indication of the content of the bundle – e.g. “CO12342021 Carpenters v Adventurers Hearing Bundle” or “CO12342021 Carpenters v Adventurers Authorities Bundle”.

Hyperlinked Index

Each entry in the index must be hyperlinked to the indexed document.

Numbering

All pages in an e-bundle must be numbered by computer-generated numbering, not by hand. The numbering should start at page 1 for the first page of the bundle (whether or not that is part of an index) and the numbering must follow sequentially to the last page of the bundle to ensure the pagination matches the pdf numbering. If a hard copy of the bundle is produced, the pagination must match the e-bundle.

Para 2 of the general guidance is temporarily suspended in public law children proceedings. During the period of suspension, further enquiries will be undertaken to examine the operational and resource consequences of the general guidance to local authorities and those representing respondents in public law proceedings. A working group comprising of representatives from the Judiciary, the FLBA and the ALC has been established to examine the issues and make recommendations.

OCR

All pages in an e-bundle that contain typed text must be subject to OCR (optical character recognition) if they have not been created directly as electronic text documents. This makes it easier to search for text, highlight parts of a page, and to copy text from the bundle.

Core Bundle

If a core bundle is required, then a PDF core bundle should be produced complying with the same requirements as a paper bundle.

Number of Bundles

When preparing for a case, thought should be given to the number of bundles required. It is usually better to have a single hearing e-bundle and (where appropriate) a separate single authorities e-bundle (compiled in accordance with requirements), rather than multiple bundles. These should follow any applicable court-specific guidance.

Delivering by Email

If a bundle is to be sent by email, ensure the file size is not too large. For justice.gov e-mail addresses the maximum size of email and attachments is 36Mb in aggregate. Anything larger will be rejected. The subject line of the email should contain the case number, short-form case name, hearing date and if known, the name of judge.

Delivering by Uploading

Bundles should be sent to the court in accordance with the court’s directions. Where the bundle would otherwise be sent by email (rather than being uploaded to a portal) but is too large to be sent under cover of a single email then it may be sent to the Document Upload Centre by prior arrangement with the court.

Interested to learn more? Get in touch with us today to download our free guide on e-bundle creation and access your pre-set templates.

The Ultimate Guide for Delivering eBundles

In addition to the creation of ebundles, delivery has become a major part in the overall bundling process. With the time that you will spend preparing your bundles for court, what is the use if you cannot share it with your fellow colleagues, clients or the courts?

For UK-based legal professionals the Judiciary recently released updated guidance on the delivery of ebundles to court. However we would recommend that you contact the relevant courts directly to confirm the type of delivery they will accept. It is important to select a method that will allow you to share your ebundle with the recipient in a way that will not waste critical time. We have outlined the below to give some insight into what delivery options are available to you.

 

1.     Secure Share

With our secure share option, users have the ability to share any bundles created within Bundledocs securely with a third party. From the moment you send the ebundle you have full visibility on the status of the file receiving a notification once it has been sent and downloaded by the intended recipient.

One of the many benefits of this option is that you can send bundles regardless of their size - other options may have a limit on the size of the file being shared which can cause problems if you have a large ebundle to be shared with colleagues, clients or the courts. If it is security around confidential data that you are worried about, this option allows you to share securely via an encrypted hyperlink. In some cases, courts may not be happy to receive files via a third party so make sure to check in before sending.

 

2.     Email delivery

Bundledocs users can share bundles created within the solution with third parties via Microsoft Outlook or alternative email providers. Unlike our Secure Share option mentioned above, final ebundle is sent directly from your email via encrypted hyperlink as opposed to via the Bundledocs platform.

By choosing this option you will still be able to send large ebundles, however the intended recipient will recognise the person the ebundle is being sent by as opposed to it appearing from a third party. This option would be suitable for sharing ebundles with the courts.

 

3.     Direct upload

When preparing ebundles to court, the ability to directly upload your ebundles ensures that your bundle goes directly to the intended recipient. The provision of such a resource by the courts also saves time for your firm as you do not need to look for emails of individuals to share the bundle with.

This option is also suitable when an email is too large to be sent via email. Although the courts may have shared their process for uploading document to their portal with you, it would be advisable to contact the courts directly and confirm how they will accept bundles using this method.

 

To find out more about sharing your ebundles securely contact our support team

Five Tricks To Help Power Up Your E-Bundling

E-bundling has fundamentally changed the way in which court bundles are created. In addition to saving time and allowing you to collaborate with colleagues from anywhere at any time, utilising the additional features that Bundledocs offer can elevate a user's experience. 

Our support team liaise with our customers daily and they have identified the features that our customers regularly enquire about when creating bundles. Read on to see how you can take your bundle creation to the next level.  


Sort documents chronologically 

When preparing large bundles for court there can be a lot of documents that will be worked on. If you are preparing your documents and you need to sort them by date you can do this easily with Bundledocs – in just a single click. To do so, show the documents dates on screen. Following this, you have the option to amend the document dates if needed. Clicking the ‘sort by date’ button will automatically display the dates of each document in your bundle by ascending order. If you are required to present them in descending order, simply click the button again and it will change the filter automatically.  

To see this in action you can visit our dedicated tutorial How to Sort Documents in Date Order.

Move your documents 

When creating bundles, there are numerous documents added throughout the process. Depending on how your bundle is to be presented you may need to move some documents around. We make this easy for you, with the click of a mouse, you can simply move around the order of your documents into your desired structure. Need to move more than one document? You also have the option to select each file and number them in in the order you would like them to appear.  

 

Create a custom index 

In order to meet court requirements creating a custom index within your bundle is vital. The good news is that with Bundledocs this can be done in a simple click. Your first step will be creating sections and adding documents before generating your bundle. Once you generate your bundle your document will be instantly indexed, sectioned, numbered, and hyperlinked. There are many ways that you can customise your index such as changing the title, including dates, removing the index entirely – or even by uploading your own index. With Bundledocs you have the freedom to create an e-bundle that will meet your specific requirements.

Contact our support team for free setup and access to our free templates. 

 

 

Remove section index page 

With Bundledocs you can automatically generate a complete index which is fully sectioned, numbered and hyperlinked for easy navigation. However, in some cases your bundle will not require an index. For instances like these you can remove your section index pages in three simple steps – simply generate the bundle, expand the ‘Section Pages’ section and select ‘Remove Section Index Pages’. Now your e-bundle is ready to go.  

To see this in action you can visit our dedicated tutorial How to Remove Section Index Pages

Share your files securely 

When it comes to sharing your final bundle with clients, colleagues, and the court with Bundledocs you can do so securely. Our ISO 27001 accreditation ensures that your confidential data always remains secure. When sending via email for an added level of security you can password protect your documents ensuring that only those who have the password can open the email.  

With emails the data limitations mean that your bundle may have to be split into sections. To eradicate this, you can share your bundle via our secure share function which allows you to share bundles with a third-party securely with full visibility on when the files is received and downloaded.  

 

If you want to find out about our additional features to make your bundling process even easier get in touch with our support team today.  

Get Court Compliant with Bundledocs

The UK Judiciary recently introduced new guidance on the preparation of electronic bundles for court hearings. Up until the pandemic e-bundles had been utilised. However, during 2020 and beyond e-bundles were used extensively as court hearings were held remotely with documents becoming bigger and more demanding. This updated guidance which replaces the previous revision published in May 2020 has been developed to ensure consistency in the creation of e-bundles for the efficient preparation and management of court hearings. 

What does this mean for your firm? The good news is that at Bundledocs we are fully compliant. Here we have laid out some of the main points within the updated guidance and how you can approach creating your e-bundles compliantly: 

Ebundle Creation 

All bundles must now be provided in PDF format – something that our solution does automatically. Within your e-bundle all pages must be digitally numbered by computer-generated numbering, not by hand. Regardless of whether the first page is part of an index, the first page of the bundle must be numbered as one with additional pages following sequentially. If you are required to produce a hard copy of your bundle – the pagination must match the e-bundle.  

With Bundledocs you can manipulate your documents to meet requirements set out by the UK judiciary. If any of the pages in the bundle have been created in landscape orientation, they must appear within the bundle in this format so that they can be read from left to right.  Additionally, you have the option to change the default page view to be 100% to meet guidance set out by the judiciary. 

When it comes to the presentation of your ebundle the resolution should not be greater that 300 dpi to prevent slow scrolling or rendering when your ebundle is being viewed. To avoid excessively large bundles, you can easily adjust the resolution for your ebundle.  

 

Formatting 

All entries in an index must now be hyperlinked to the corresponding document, all sections must be bookmarked for ease of navigation and the bookmark should contain the page number of the document. With Bundledocs you can automatically  generate a customised index and bookmarks, which update each time you generate your bundle. Additionally, all pages with typed text must be subject to OCR, this allows for easier searching for text, highlighting parts of a page, and copying text from the bundle. Our built in OCR functionality means your firm will not have to purchase additional OCR software.  

Pre-Hearing 

E-bundles can be shared with the courts prior to hearings via email or by uploading to a document upload centre – the issue here is that some bundles may be too large to be sent via email. Bundledocs features a secure share functionality where you can share direct to a third party or via outlook. There is also the option to share as an email attachment or via the third parties software. Additionally, you can download you e-bundle and upload directly depending on the requirements set out by the court.  

If new documents need to be added after an e-bundle has been submitted to the judge the judiciary requires that pages are added to the end of a bundle and paginated accordingly. The judge should then be provided with the new bundle and separately the completed revised bundle. Our solution allows you to add additional documents at the last minute while generating a new version with numbering etc. automatically updated. There is also the option to generate your bundle with just the late inserts – rather than the entire bundle which can then be shared.               

We want to help you create e-bundles with complete ease. Get in touch to grab a copy of our court compliant template today.

5 Hidden Gems of Bundledocs Electronic Document Bundling Software

In today’s post we are going to focus on some of the best features of Bundledocs electronic document bundling software. These features are our real hidden gems. So whether you’re a Bundledocs Pro already or simply looking to learn more then this post has something for everyone.

5_Hidden_Gems_of_Bundledocs_Electronic_Document_Bundling_Software.png

Discover the Hidden Gems of Bundledocs Electronic Document Bundling Software

Here at Bundledocs it’s our mission to make document bundling and production as simple and seamless as possible. We have designed our software to be incredibly easy to use and over the years have continued to enhance it to have everything you need to create the perfect bundle, anywhere. If your using Bundledocs to help you create the perfect document bundle, then these are the features that are going to help make document bundling so much easier.

Easily Add Email Attachments

Recently our support team were asked if it’s possible to add emails and email attachments to their bundle? Yes it is. Bundledocs allows you to easily upload your emails to Bundledocs and every email is even automatically converted to PDF on upload.

Then if you would like to add email attachments to your bundle, this is possible too. Simply switch on the setting ‘Use Email Attachments Where Possible?’ option in your account settings. All email attachments are then included in your bundle on upload. Simple!

Check out our ‘How Do I Upload Emails with Attachments to Bundledocs?' post or take a look at our ‘Include Email Attachments’ video to see how it’s done.


More Ways to Move Documents

We all know we can move documents in Bundledocs using a simple drag and drop. However did you know there are many more options available.

For example you can move a single document, a range of documents, or select multiple documents at once and move in an order of your choosing. Then when it comes to moving the files you can do this through drag/drop or move everything with a single click. Check out our ‘Moving Bundledocs Documents Made Easy’ video to see it in action!

Sort Documents Chronologically

When it comes time to prepare your bundle for court or trial, one of the most time consuming activities comes when you need to sort documents or correspondence in chronological order. In this case, there is no need to drag and drop documents to place them in the correct sequence. It is possible to sort chronologically with a single click.

If you have yet to discover this awesome feature, then check out our ’Easily sort court documents in chronological order.’ post or take a look at our ‘How to sort documents in date order’ video to see it in action.

Top Tip! Simply enable dates to appear on screen for the sorting options to appear. Grab a copy of our complete user manual for full details.

Work with Custom Indexing

When it comes to producing your index page, the format can vary depending on your house style, court requirements or the type of bundle you need to produce. Using our powerful custom index functionality, you control the look and feel of your index page. So whether you work in the commercial department, family law department, or work in dispute resolution etc. you can create a custom index to suit you.

If you’re interested in getting setup with Bundledocs custom indexing, get in touch with our support team today. We will help you setup your custom index and provide free online training to help you create your own.


Securely Share Bundles

Bundledocs in-built ‘forward bundle to third party‘ features allows you securely share bundles of any size with any third party. Here’s how it works:

Better still, why not use with other features and securely share your bundle as a zip files - with the documents in their original format or as converted PDF; use our include/exclude features and easily exclude any sections that are not relevant to the recipient; or even remove all documents and only share the completed index page with others (this video ‘Share Bundle Index‘ will show you how it’s done).

That completes our round of our top 5 hidden gems of Bundledocs electronic document bundling software. Of course, there’s more where that came from so if you are new to Bundledocs or simply want a refresher on features you may have missed, get in touch with our awesome team. We love to hear from you!

Get Started with Bundledocs Today...