How this practice works
A Forensic Methodology, Disclosed
Every finding this practice produces, whether it is destined for a boardroom or a courtroom, is built to the same standard: tested, checked, challenged and put on the record before it is relied on. This page states that method. It is not a sales page.
Quick answer: A single, disclosed method applied to every engagement across security, safety, risk, resilience and management consulting, whether or not litigation is contemplated. It is built to the forensic standard by default, meaning advice is produced so it can survive being tested years later, not retrofitted after the fact. The method rests on six disciplines applied to every material finding: test it, check it, challenge it, critique it, ask the questions that haven't been asked, and seek clarification rather than assume. It carries a stated refusal set: no captured findings, no contingent fees, no buried assumptions.
Most advisory work is written to be read once and filed. Forensic work is written to be read years later, by people who were not in the room, in a forum where being wrong has consequences. This practice produces every substantive piece of work, advisory or evidentiary, to the second standard. That is a deliberate choice stated in the Terms of Reference governing this practice: building to a defensible standard at the time of production costs little. Retrofitting it after a finding is challenged is not possible.
This page sets out what that means for a client, an instructing solicitor, an audit and risk committee, or a regulator assessing the work, without setting out the internal mechanics by which the method operates. Those mechanics are documented, version-controlled and available to instructing parties on request.
Assurance
The Terms of Reference exist so a buyer of this work has a checkable account of the method, including what it cannot do. Every substantive deliverable is produced against declared standards and authorities, fixed before the opinion is formed rather than defended after it is challenged.
Consistency
The same discipline governs a board paper, a risk assessment and an expert report. The work differs in orientation and in the specific tests applied depending on what's asked, not in the sequence or the evidentiary discipline underneath it. A client engaging this practice for governance advice today and litigation support tomorrow is getting the same method both times.
Transparency
Where a step was not run, or was run in reduced form because of time, budget or access, the deliverable says so on its face. A scope limitation is treated as a finding in its own right, not a footnote. Absence of evidence is recorded as absence of evidence, never quietly assumed away.
The six-part discipline
- Test. Does it actually hold up. A finding is checked against the evidence, not just against itself. Where the evidence will not carry a conclusion at the strength being claimed, the conclusion is wound back to what the evidence will carry, and that is stated rather than smoothed over.
- Check. Is it complete and internally consistent. Every material finding is checked against the standard or authority it is being measured against, not against a house preference or what would be convenient to conclude.
- Challenge. Would it survive a hostile reader. Every substantive finding is stress-tested against the strongest opposing case before it is released, not after an opposing expert or a cross-examination finds the gap first.
- Critique. An independent, adversarial pass. Findings are examined for what they assume, what they omit and where they overreach, applied by the same rigour to the practice's own work as to anyone else's.
- Ask any questions. The question actually being answered is fixed and agreed before evidence is gathered, and revisited if it changes. Work does not proceed on an assumed brief.
- Seek clarification as required. Where evidence is missing, ambiguous or contested, that is put back to the instructing party rather than resolved by assumption. Instructed assumptions are stated as assumptions, not dressed as findings.
What this practice will not do
Carried across from the standing refusal set already published on this site, restated here because it is the clearest evidence of what the method actually protects:
What every deliverable carries
A short, consistent set of declarations appears in the body of every substantive piece of work this practice produces, so a reader can see the basis of a finding without having to ask for it: who instructed the work and what question was asked, the material time the assessment is anchored to, the independence and fee basis, what evidence was reviewed and what was requested and not produced, every assumption relied on and how it's classified, and any scope limitation stated against the finding it affects.
What "method" usually means vs what it means here
| Dimension | Generic advisory practice | This practice |
|---|---|---|
| Method | Implicit in the consultant's experience | Written, version-controlled, disclosed to clients |
| Standard applied | Varies by engagement, rarely stated | Forensic standard by default, stated in every deliverable |
| Scope limitations | Often absent or buried | Stated in the body, next to the finding they affect |
| Independence | Asserted | Structural: no delivery arm, no contingent fees, refusals on the record |
| Consistency across advisory and litigation work | Two different standards, two different risk profiles | One method, same discipline either way |
Want to see how this method applies to your matter?
Every engagement starts with the same conversation: what's the question, who has to decide, and what standard does the answer need to meet.
Get in touch →Tony Ridley MSc CSyP FSyI SRMCP