Employment Tribunal - help

[Namechangeemploymenthelp]

I am representing myself at an employment tribunal (am the Claimant but can no longer afford legal costs). We had the preliminary hearing and the Judge made a series of Case Management Orders. One stipulated that, by close today, we must exchange lists of all relevant documents that we hold. I have prepared a list but have just received the Respondents response and it includes scans of the actual documents!!

I haven’t done this yet : the order just says a list and gives other deadlines for the preparation of the actual bundle. There are literally thousands of documents and there is no way I can do this today (I imagine it will take days to scan and redact each document).

I am slightly freaking out that I’m going to get into trouble. What would you do? Just send what I have done and say that the documents will follow? I have reread the Case Management Order and it definitely just says exchange lists of documents held not the actual documents. But perhaps that is some sort of legal code/language for the documents and I should have known?? Eek. Any help/advice would be appreciated : particularly from anyone who has been through this.

It sounds like you were asked to prepare a list of documents, and that's what you have done. Don't allow yourself to be freaked out by what they're doing. Just focus on following the instructions that you have been given.

Could you just scan the most important and relevant documents and then list the rest?

It is normal that the employers side prepares the actual bundle of documents. If it says lists on the order, there's no reason why they can't send the actual documents, but there is also no reason they must.

Thank you (for this and the other replies).
There are literally hundreds of relevant documents (a 20 year career and complicated case) so even scanning key documents may take an age (and am currently at the dentist waiting for root canal!)? But if you think I should I could probably do some when I get home (shows willing?).

Why haven’t you got it ready Op? It’s very much in your interests given you are the one pursuing

There are literally thousands of documents

and the vast vast majority will be utterly irrelevant to your case

what you need to do is streamline and pull out the strong ones

If the order says list of documents a list is all you need. That is absolutely fine. The respondent then has a right to inspect, which in reality means them requesting copies of some or all of the documents on your list and you sending copies (although they can request to look at the originals if they want).

You absolutely shouldn't be looking through the documents to only pull out the strongest ones😬🤦‍♀️ unless the court has ordered you to only produce documents in support of your case (which would be very unusual). In most cases you are required to produce documents relevant to the case whether they are supportive or adverse to either party. The order should specify what sorts of documents you have been asked to disclose.

Hi OP. Take a deep breath - judges are much more sympathetic to those representing themselves (unless the case is massively frivolous!). If you make any genuine mistakes, they will give you time to correct them.

It is the employer's solicitors who will prepare the bundles. The list of documents are important to ascertain that all relevant information is in the bundle. A lot of documents are likely to be held by the employer such as employment contract etc. You will be asked to provide any documents you wish to be considered that are NOT on the employers list.

The employer's solicitor may have sent the documents ahead as so that you can see what they are including and to avoid duplication (you might list a document as xyz and they may call it abc which might result in the same document being added twice. Also, the employers solicitor will have been sent all of the documents by the employer and they look like they are being more transparent by sending documents ahead of time.

Please don't panic. You have followed the case management orders by submitting the list as was requested.

I have started getting it ready - just haven’t scanned / redacted the documents as I thought the next stage was to agree what would be included etc. There is a later deadline in the Case Management Orders for this and they have only just sent over their amended grounds of resistance (which I need to consider to ensure I have included all relevant documents).

Thinking about it - surely both sides will have most of the same documents? They have sent me over 1000 already.

Both sides should have most of the same docs. They will compare their list with yours and request anything they don't have. You are doing fine!

what eurochick said, a list is a list. It is to let the Respondent know what documents you have which you feel a re relevant to your case.

They may ask you to provide copies of documents they do not have.

You will then have to agree a bundle index, which is an agreed list of all the relevant documents. They may suggest that some of your documents are not relevant. That will be for you to consider.

There may be a later date in the Orders for exchange or provision of documents.

Also if they are mostly work documents, the Respondent may have copies of lots of them. They many not want you to send thousands of documents they already have. They'll likely ask you for the ones they don't have.

Thank you so much for your helpful replies. I am so grateful for the collective wisdom of Mumsnet. Was in a real panic - not helped by needing root canal!! Your advice really helped.

I have sent them my list of documents and had a cursory look at what they have sent over. There is over a thousand pages but as pp said much of it duplicates what I hold (contract, policies, emails etc). I will see how they respond but in the meantime aak my local printers to print off all their documents (think my cheap and cheerful copier would explode!) and then cross reference it to the bundle I have prepared - taking out anything that they already have a copy of. Will then redact and scan. Am a bit worried about how long it may take as my equipment isn’t very good and I don’t want to miss any deadlines but will get cracking.

Thanks again for all your advice. Sorry if I was being a bit pathetic - I haven’t been very well (not an excuse : I know I need to get a grip). Thanks .

I'm an employment lawyer, and just to confirm what other have said, you're completely right to just provide the list.

Thank you so much. Such a relief.

In terms of your documents, I'd follow up with the other side to ask what documents they actually require you to send them. As someone else noted the majority will be duplicates. Usually there's a date given for provision of the docs but if not just make sure you give them enough time to prepare the bundle.

You can email the documents over as a PDF - you don't have to print them all and send them. The company solicitors will be responsible for printing the bundles which they will provide a copy of to you and to the court.

Hi @Namechangeemploymenthelp, another message to try and reassure you that it is fine for you to have prepared the list but not scans of documents. The Respondent (if a large organisation) often sends documents to accompany the list. The scanned docs should be in date order, so go through them carefully and see if they have disclosed the same docs you have. If you have documents that they don’t have, then ask for them to be added (using the deadline for submitting copies given in the Order). It’s also fine to submit further documents right up until the hearing date if more info comes to light.

This website is dated but has some helpful info for ET claimants - http://etclaims.co.uk/

shout if you have any questions- I’m not a solicitor but I do a lot of admin work in relation to ET claims.

Thank you very much for all your advice. I am extremely grateful.

Have to echo what another poster said- Judges tend to be more sympathetic to those without representation- I’ve even seen the respondents barrister prompting the claimant in some cases