How To Create a Court Bundle [2024 Guide]
It would be an understatement to say that a lot’s changed since we first released our bundle software. In 11 years of business, nothing has highlighted the importance of LegalTech quite like COVID-19. Luckily, it’s never been easier to deal with the challenges of remote work. With more and more courts encouraging e-bundles, and more and more firms requiring cloud-based solutions, we introduce to you our Court Bundle Guide - 2024 Edition.
Not too long ago, to build a court bundle would involve tidying up your courtroom documents on Word, printing a single copy of each document, getting them in order and walking down to the photocopier to copy and paginate your court bundle.
During these 'dark days' the photocopier was the workhorse of your office. I don’t believe printers to be fearful machines, but even they may have experienced some anxiety as you placed a heaving stack of documents onto their lids and pressed ‘paginate’.
Hopefully your documents are in the correct order, your sections flawless and your index is perfect. If a single document is out of place the whole bundle will need to be repaginated and reprinted. If a page needs to be added and/or removed, again these steps need to be repeated.
The digital transformation of the bundling process
Fortunately for you and your photocopier, the world has moved on. Digital solutions now exist to help you prepare your court bundle in a matter of minutes. The best of these combine automation with customisation; automating the manual tasks such as index creation and page numbering, together with customising the elements you need in order to comply with your court’s practice direction.
How to build a court bundle for free using Safelink
Safelink offers a court bundling application which allows you to create your court bundle in 5 simple steps.
Step 1 - Create your court bundle sections
Define the sections that you want to organise your documents into. These are not fixed and can be amended and updated at any time.
Step 2 - Upload your documents
As you upload your documents into your bundle, Safelink auto-generates an index and paginates your bundle to your chosen specification.
Step 3 - Arrange and re-order your documents
As you change the arrangement of your documents or add in extra documents or pages, the index and page numbers automatically re-calibrate.
Step 4 - Customise your court bundle
Each court will have a specific practice direction you will need to adhere to. Safelink's bundle settings let you align your court bundle appearance to the court's specifications.
Customisable features within our bundling tools include your cover sheet, spine labels, font size, colours and format, pagination options, and section specifications.
Step 5 - Export your bundle
You can choose to download your bundle as a pdf, print it (double or single-sided) and/or securely share it electronically with interested parties.
Start building court bundles in Safelink - Free plan now available.
Safelink's court bundling tool has a free plan, so you can sign up immediately and get building your first bundle. Learn more about the benefits of using Safelink to build your court bundle.
Learn more about Safelink's document bundling feature
Vastly reduce time spent on admin by eliminating manual tasks when preparing your bundle for court
Safelink is an all-in-one cloud-based platform used by law firms, corporate services and financial services to securely deliver client services digitally. The efficiency gains, and overall client experience, in servicing clients via one digital platform leads to deeper relationships, reduced costs, and an ability to handle more matters, all while raising standards and guaranteeing consistency. Safelink not only offers a document bundling facility but can also be used for the following:
- Collaboration for teams and clients
- Deal Rooms for transactions
- Litigation and SAR management
- Document Review
- Electronic Bundling
- Large File Transfer
- Workflows, including conditionality, e-signatures, and document generation
- Custom Tables and Forms
Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2021 and has been updated in January 2023 for accuracy and comprehensiveness.