Sherliker: BunTool has grown much faster than I expected
A City solicitor has invented free software that aims to make producing PDF court bundles hassle-free for lawyers and litigants in person (LiPs) alike.
Tris Sherliker, an IP lawyer at City firm Bird & Bird, developed BunTool [1] as a personal project.
It is free to use, saves time – an estimated hour per bundle – and offers users complete privacy as the bundle is created locally without having to upload data.
BunTool was launched in March, and is already being used law firms, barristers’ chambers and LiPs.
Mr Sherliker told Legal Futures that it was about to create its 1,000th bundle less than a month since going live. “It has grown much faster than I expected.”
The bundles comply with the requirements of courts and tribunals in England and Wales, including how pages are formatted and how they scan and work on screen.
Mr Sherliker says: “For lawyers and paralegals, it saves up to an hour per bundle. For litigants in person, it saves days of work.
“LiPs come into this process not knowing what a bundle is. There is court guidance they can follow and they may get advice from Citizens Advice, just to know what to do when you produce a bundle. That alone takes days.
“With BunTool, LiPs just upload their documents and at the click of a button they have a bundle, with an index and everything they need to go into court.”
The simplicity and privacy on offer was at the heart of the concept, explained the solicitor, who has been designing and building legal software since his student days.
“This is a very simple product, made using Java script. There is no AI in BunTool. It works on a simple input and output basis. BunTool doesn’t store your data. You don’t even need to type in your email or register.
“The level of privacy that BunTool offers is very important. People can have the confidence that they are not giving their legally sensitive details to someone else.”
The origins of Buntool go back to Mr Sherliker’s own experience of preparing bundles for court; either himself or asking colleagues to create a bundle for him.
Mr Sherliker said: “It should be simple to prepare a bundle manually, but it’s not. It is often a high-pressured task, shaped by conventions and certain rules, and that’s when human error creeps into the process.
“BunTool takes away the need to put that pressure on someone in your team, and it takes away that chance of error, which keeps judges happy.
“Judges can get frustrated when cases are held up because of disorganised, confusing bundles; BunTool solves that.
“For me, this makes it an access to justice issue. If you have to go to court and you are a litigant in person, it’s a struggle. It’s a great help if you have a simple, clear bundle. You can just focus on the case.”
The project was developed pro bono, outside of office hours.
So far, BunTool has grown on the back of a few LinkedIn posts and word of mouth.
In the age of AI – which is often linked to saving costs, attracting investment and adding value to firms – Mr Sherliker said he was pleased to combine his legal knowledge and expertise with his know-how around software development and coding.