The Supreme Court and Privy Council will begin an electronic bundling pilot next month.
Lawyers will be asked to log in to a Case Lines electronic filing system and submit bundles electronically for cases granted permission from 1 October until the end of March 2015. This will replace the current practice, where lawyers send in pdfs on memory sticks. Parties granted permission to appeal before 1 October are also welcome to use the eBundle system although it is not mandatory.
The process has certain advantages built in, for example, it has bookmarks which makes it easier for a justice working on their laptop to navigate the bundle, and read-only access can be granted to other parties.
A spokesperson emphasised that the court will not be paperless, and lawyers must continue to send paper copies of all documents in to the registry. He said the court will review the pilot in March and decide whether to pilot other products, adopt the new system or revert to the old system.
The court has issued guidelines on the new system, describing the six stages involved in filing an eBundle and setting out the practical steps required at each stage.
