A ‘trial bundle’ is a collection of all the documents and evidence relevant to your civil claim organised in the way that you, the other side, and the judge will use them at the trial. ‘Index’ just means a list - that is, a list of all the documents in the bundle, placed at the front showing their page numbers, just like a contents page with chapter headings at the front of a book.

Basically, the trial bundle is just a pack of papers with a list of contents at the front, provided for the court and the defendant.

Sometimes you don’t have to prepare the trial bundle because the court will order the other party to do the job - for everyone’s convenience. This is particularly likely if they have a solicitor.  This will save you having to puzzle over the task yourself and should get it done quickly and efficiently. Although, make sure they include the documents you want in the bundle. 

You may also get the chance (for example, at a hearing when the judge gives directions, and if the other party is represented by a solicitor), to ask the judge to order the other side to prepare the bundle. 

The court may give you instructions (in the Order for directions) about what to include in the bundle.

• Read what the court has asked you to do very carefully. You may, for example, be asked to include a short case summary (250 words max) outlining what you and the other side still disagree about. This order may also tell you how the court wants the bundle presented, for example, in a lever-arch file or ring binder, printed on both sides, and with each page clearly numbered.
• Get together all the paperwork which supports your claim and challenges what the defendant says or is claiming. You also have to include anything relevant that existed before you started your claim (for example, pay slips, contract of employment, work rotas) even if they do not help your case.
• Never put original documents in the bundle – provide photocopies instead - but take the originals with you to the trial in case the judge has any queries about them.
• Make sure you add all the documents you need at the start. If you later include a document in your bundle that is not in your List of documents, the other side will object and you will have to explain to the judge why you are only producing it now. It’s possible the judge may not allow you to use it.

The list below represents the usual, suggested order to put your documents in. It’s best to group similar items (for example, invoices) together, rather than to itemise them individually in your index.

1. Statements of case (These are court documents in which you and the other side present and argue for your case. So, a claim, counterclaim or defence are all ‘statements of case’. You should put them in date order – claim form first, then particulars of claim if separate.)
2. Court orders in date order
3. Witness statements
4. Any documents from the List of documents that deal with the fault and where responsibility lies, for example, the accident report in a personal injury claim.
5. Any documents from the List of documents that deal with the value of the claim. It is important not to overlook this heading. The judge may want help deciding how much your claim is worth. So, if, for example, you are finding it difficult to get work and this is relevant to your claim, produce evidence of unsuccessful job applications.
6. Medical reports
7. Other expert reports
8. Photographs and sketch plans 

To get the bundle agreed, just send the other side a copy of the index – your list of what the bundle will have in it. There is no need to send them the actual documents along with the index.

At this stage, don’t include any page numbers on your index because you haven’t finalised what is going in it. The other side may also want documents taken out or added. If you cannot agree on this, the documents in dispute are put in a second bundle. 

If you have to produce the trial bundle, you usually have to give physical or digital copies to the court and the other side. This must be done between 3 -7 clear days before the start of the trial (or on a date directed by the court). 

You also need to make a copy for yourself and one to take with you to court for the witness box – for the people who will need to refer to it, like witnesses and experts.

Stick to the deadline for preparing the indexed bundle and giving it to the court. If it’s not possible to agree it with the other side, then you should still provide the court with a copy of your own bundle up to that point. Make sure you have all the emails showing how you tried to agree the contents of the bundle with you at court, so the judge can see it’s not your fault.

You should be able to look down the index, find the document you are interested in, turn to the page it says it is at, and find it there. It makes finding things much quicker as long as you make sure the documents are in the order the index says they are in, and every sheet of paper is numbered in order, in the middle of the bottom of each page.

Put some time aside to check the final order of the index. Perhaps also ask if someone you trust can double-check it for you.

Once checked, this means you can confidently say to the judge at the trial ‘please will you look at page 38 in the bundle’. If everyone quickly and correctly finds the same page, then you will have prepared your bundle successfully.
 

• If the total number of pages in your bundle is more than 100, then use numbered dividers between each group of documents. These will help everyone find their way around the bundle more quickly.
• You are now expected to print on both sides of the paper (unless that is not possible for you, so don’t stress if you cannot do this).
• Don’t number the pages in your bundle until the other side have agreed it. If they want something else to go in and you have already numbered it, you will end up having to do it all again.
• If you have to add documents after you’ve done the page numbering – for example, if you have copies of more recent job applications to add to those already included in the bundle on pages 48 -61, you add them behind page 61, numbering them 61a, 61b, 61c and so on, so they are in a logical place.
• Produce, and number, one bundle and index first. Take any staples out of the documents. Check the bundle against the index to make sure the documents in the bundle are in the order the index says they are in.
• Make sure every sheet of paper is numbered in order in the middle of the bottom page, so when you look for ‘page 57 to find the DVLA document V5C’ – there it is.
• You may hear the term ‘pagination’ used by the judge, court staff and the other side’s lawyers. All it means is giving numbers to the pages of the bundle. So, a ‘paginated’ bundle is one where the pages have been numbered in the middle of the bottom of the page.
• Make sure you have got your first bundle right before copying however many more you need. This may sound obvious, but it is easy to do the copying before numbering the pages and then you are stuck with having to number 3 or more sets of documents by hand instead of just one.
• Another easy mistake when you are copying is to forget that some originals are single sided and others are double sided. Make sure that you don’t just end up with only 1 side of a double-sided document.
• Where a document is only one page long or has an odd number of pages, add a blank unprinted page on the back. This will mean that the next document starts on the right and doesn't share a page leaf with a different document.

If I’m sending an e-bundle, can I just email 10 separate files to the court?

No. The court generally refuses to accept multiple loose emails or attachments. They must all be combined into one single PDF file so the judge can scroll and search through it easily.

If your final PDF file is too large to be accepted by the judge’s email, you may need to check with the court about other ways of sending the PDF bundle. Usually a link to download the bundle from a cloud server is fine.

If you are responsible for creating your bundle by yourself and you are finding it difficult, you may want to seek some further advice.

Although it can be difficult to get free or low-cost legal advice, there are some places to try. See How find advice about your civil case.
 

Allocation 

The process of deciding which track the case should follow.

Directions questionnaire 

A questionnaire that helps the court decide how to deal with your case and which track to allocate (transfer) your case to.

Disclosure 

The process of showing the relevant evidence to the other party.

Expert evidence 

This is evidence of an expert’s opinion, of what they think or believe about something.

Filing 

Giving the court a document or copy

Index 

A document at the front of the trial bundle listing all the documents in the bundle and    their page numbers.

Indexed bundle of documents 

A pack combining both parties’ documents with a list at the front showing what is in it.

Notice of proposed allocation 

A notice is a bit like a letter. This notice tells you which track the judge thinks is suitable for your case. This could be the small claims track, the fast track (and for cases involving claims of more than £25,000, the intermediate track or the multi-track). It also tells you to complete a directions questionnaire.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) 

This allows the words in a PDF document to become searchable. By pressing "Ctrl+F" you should be able to find a specific name or date.

Order for directions 

Instructions that a civil court gives you and the other sides involved in a dispute. The ones you receive are usually based on standard directions that the judge will adjust to your individual case.

Pagination 

Giving numbers to the pages of the bundle. So, a ‘paginated’ bundle is one where the pages have been numbered in the middle of the bottom of each page.

Pre-trial checklist 

A form you use to tell the court how your case is progressing in the run up to the trial.

Serving a bundle 

Giving the other side the bundle.

Trial bundle 

A collection of documents relevant to a civil claim which is used at the trial.

Trial window 

The particular period of time during which your case is likely to be heard. The court may ask you for information about when you can and can’t attend during that period.

Request to inspect 

This refers to your right to ask to see and check the original documents supporting the other party’s case. It’s no longer common to do this unless one party suspects the other has tampered with originals.

Settled 

You reach an agreement with the other party which concludes the case.

Witness statement 

A document in which someone explains what they saw, did or heard

Simultaneous exchange 

This is when the parties to a case exchange their witness statements at the same time on the same day.

Statements of case 

The court documents in which you and the other side present and argue each side of the case. So, a claim form, particulars of claims, counterclaim or defence are all ‘statements of case’.

Disclaimer

The information in this guide applies to England and Wales only. The law may be different if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland. The law is complicated. We have simplified things in this guide. Please don’t rely on this guide as a complete statement of the law. We recommend you try and get advice from the sources we have suggested.

The cases we refer to are not always real but show a typical situation. We have included them to help you think about how to deal with your own situation.

Acknowledgements

This guide was produced and updated by Advicenow. We would like to thank everybody who commented on the guide including editorial teams at Thomson Reuters who kindly peer reviewed this updated version.

This guide was updated thanks to funding from the Ministry of Justice via the Online Support and Advice Grant.