Bundle and unbundling

Bundle and unbundling: do you know what these two words mean, and how they relate to legal English?

A bundle (noun) means a group of things that are held together. For example, we can talk about a bundle of clothes or a bundle of papers. A bundle can also refer to a group of products sold together, such as telephones with accessories or subscriptions to multiple streaming platforms.

In British legal English, a trial bundle is the bundle of papers that the lawyers send to the court before a trial. Here is how we describe a trial bundle in Chapter 11 of our book, Practical English Language Skills for Lawyers:

‘In England, a bundle is a ring binder file or an electronic file of all the relevant documents for a court case. It is used by the judge, claimant, defendant, and witnesses. A trial bundle normally includes an index, statements of case, witness statements, and exhibits.’

To unbundle something (verb) means to separate it from a bundle of things. A topic currently being discussed by the Law Society in England is the unbundling of legal services. This refers to separating the different tasks in a legal case and allowing a client to instruct a lawyer on some particular tasks but not the whole case. The Law Society is asking for its members’ views on unbundling - see this article.