How does BundleCreator help litigants in person prepare court bundles?

Last updated: 7 May 2026

BundleCreator is built for self-represented parties as much as for solicitors and barristers. If you are a litigant in person facing a hearing — a child arrangements case, a financial remedy First Appointment, a fact-finding, or a First Hearing Dispute Resolution Appointment (FHDRA) — you have to produce the same court-compliant bundle a represented party would. This article walks through, step by step, what BundleCreator does at each stage to make that achievable without legal training.

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Quick answer

BundleCreator helps litigants in person prepare court bundles by removing the technical work that normally requires a paralegal: it generates the index automatically, applies Bates per-section page numbering (A1, A2, B1, B2…) in the form described by Practice Direction 27A, embeds bookmarks, runs OCR on scanned documents, compresses the file to fit court e-bundle upload caps, and provides over 370 pre-loaded templates so you are not drafting from a blank page. There is a 14-day trial, a structurally locked Training Bundle so you can practise without affecting real work, and pay-as-you-go pricing from £12 per bundle for one-off use.

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Why litigants in person need different software

According to Family Court Statistics, a substantial proportion of parties in private law children cases are unrepresented. The same Practice Direction 27A rules apply whether you have a solicitor or not — a bundle filed without consecutive pagination, a hyperlinked index, OCR, or bookmarks can be returned by the court regardless of who prepared it. The version of PD27A in force at the date of this article is the 2 March 2026 edition (clarifying amendments 24 March 2026).

Most legal software is built for firms managing hundreds of cases. A litigant in person typically has one matter, limited time around work or childcare, and no IT support to lean on. The features that matter are different.

Step 1: Start with the area of law that fits your case

When you sign in for the first time, BundleCreator asks one question: have you built a bundle before? If you have not, you are routed to a guided journey. From there you pick the area of law — children, divorce, financial remedy, domestic abuse, TOLATA, immigration, employment, housing, SEND, and others. Each area has its own template library mapped to the Practice Direction or procedure rule that governs it.

For a litigant in person, this matters because you are not picking from a blank menu of forms. The system already knows what a position statement for a children hearing looks like, what a Form E requires, what a Scott Schedule needs to contain.

Step 2: Practise on the Training Bundle before touching real work

Every new account starts with a Training Bundle pre-seeded into your library. It is structurally locked, does not count against your bundle limit, and exports with a clear PRACTICE watermark. You can drag documents, reorder pages, change numbering modes, and run a full export end to end without affecting any live matter.

For someone preparing a bundle for the first time, the night before a hearing is the worst place to learn the software. The Training Bundle removes that pressure.

Step 3: Build from plain-English templates

BundleCreator includes over 370 templates across 22 areas of law. Templates start with the document title and include yellow-highlighted guidance — who the document is for, when you would use it, why the court expects it — that strips out automatically at export. The yellow text is there to guide you while you are drafting; it never reaches the judge.

For a litigant in person this is the difference between staring at a blank page wondering what a position statement at the FHDRA should look like and starting from a structured outline with prompts. You can edit every word; nothing is locked.

Step 4: Upload your evidence and let the system organise it

You can upload PDFs, photos of documents, scans, or Word files. BundleCreator runs OCR on anything image-based so the text inside scans becomes searchable. Drag a document into Section A, Section B, or Section C — the page numbers and the index update automatically. Reorder a document and every reference recalculates without manual renumbering.

Step 5: Generate the bundle in a format the court accepts

Practice Direction 27A requires consecutive pagination through each section, a hyperlinked index, OCR on every page, and bookmarks for navigation. BundleCreator does all four as part of the standard export. The bundle comes out as a single PDF that opens cleanly in the court's e-bundle viewer.

Step 6: Compress to fit court upload limits

Court e-bundle portals often cap individual files at 20MB or 25MB. A 350-page scanned bundle can easily come in at 150MB or more. BundleCreator runs a compression step at export that keeps OCR, bookmarks, index, and pagination intact while bringing the file size down. In one customer example, a 56MB raw bundle came out at 15MB after compression, comfortably inside the upload cap.

Step 7: Pre-export compliance check

Before you download the final PDF, BundleCreator runs a check against the rules — file size against the 350-page default bundle limit under PD27A (longer bundles are permitted only with the court's specific permission), numbering mode against the proceeding type, index against the document list. Anything that looks wrong is flagged in plain English so you can decide whether to fix it or proceed.

Step 8: Get help when you need it

Support is by email at support@bundlecreator.co. The help centre maps every feature back to PD27A and the major procedural rules, so you can see the rule the system is implementing on your behalf. If you are stuck the night before a hearing, you do not want a long wait on a help ticket. Support hours and target response times are published in the help centre.

Pricing for a single matter

Pay-as-you-go is £12 per bundle with no subscription. If you only have one or two hearings, that is the right starting point. From roughly two bundles a month onwards, the £19.99-a-month Essential tier (15 total bundles) works out cheaper. Annual billing brings up to 20% off any tier.

There is no permanent free tier, but the 14-day trial includes the full feature set, and Training Bundle exports work throughout the trial.

Why this matters

Unrepresented parties face the same procedural rules as solicitors and barristers without the training, the IT support, or the institutional knowledge. Software that quietly does the technical work — pagination, indexing, bookmarks, OCR, compression — lets you spend your time on the parts of the case that actually require your attention: your evidence, your statement, and what you are asking the court to decide.

BundleCreator was built by someone who used the family court as a litigant in person, not as a lawyer. The features described above exist because the founder needed them.

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Frequently asked questions

Do I need legal training to use BundleCreator?

No. The interface is designed for users without legal training. Templates include plain-English guidance on what each document is for; the system handles the technical PD27A requirements automatically.

How much does it cost for a single hearing?

Pay-as-you-go is £12 per bundle. From roughly two bundles a month onwards, the Essential tier at £19.99 a month (15 total bundles) is cheaper. Annual billing brings up to 20% off.

Is BundleCreator a substitute for legal advice?

No. BundleCreator helps you prepare documents in the format described by Practice Direction 27A and equivalent rules. It does not advise on the strength of your case, the law applicable to your matter, or the likely outcome. For legal advice, speak to a solicitor, a Citizens Advice adviser, or a Law Centre.

Can I share my bundle with a McKenzie friend or a barrister?

Yes. Bundles can be shared by per-bundle invitation, so access is scoped to that bundle rather than to your whole account.

Can I practise before I commit to a real bundle?

Yes. Every account includes a structurally locked Training Bundle that does not count against your bundle limit and exports with a PRACTICE watermark. You can run the whole workflow end to end before opening a live matter.

Will my data leave the UK?

No. BundleCreator hosts data in europe-west2 (London), encrypts at rest with AES-256, and uses TLS 1.3 in transit.

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If you have a hearing coming up, start a 14-day trial and run the workflow against your real documents.

Related reading: Court Bundle Software for Litigants in Person: How BundleCreator Helps Self-Represented Parties · Court Bundle Preparation for Self-Represented Litigants: A Practical Guide · Litigant in Person in Family Court: How to Prepare Without a Solicitor