Your facts
The analysis reads documents. Some of what an attorney knows was never written down — a call, a concession made in a corridor, a client’s account of something no record captures.
Your facts, on the Analysis tab, is where that goes. State one fact, as you would to a colleague.
What recording a fact does
A fact you record is given to every later analysis. Adding one re-runs the analysis, so the effect is immediate rather than waiting for the next document.
Locking a fact
A locked fact is treated as settled rather than as something to re-test against a document that appears to disagree with it.
This is the difference that matters. An unlocked fact is one more input the engine weighs. A locked one is ground truth: if a document contradicts it, the document is the thing in question, not your fact.
Lock on the way in with Lock as verified, or lock and unlock afterwards.
Excluding a fact
A fact can be marked excluded — kept on the record, not given to runs. Use it for something that turned out to be wrong, where deleting it would lose the history of having believed it.
Remove deletes it outright.
Facts versus the chronology
They are different tools.
- A fact is a proposition. It has no date and is handed to every stage of every run.
- A chronology event is something that happened on a date. Adding one by hand is for what no document records — the call, the meeting with no minutes.
See Chronology.