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Field guide, August 2, 2025

Field guide: reading a cap table against the underlying grants

Priya RaghunathanDirector of Research7 min read

The problem

We keep coming back to reading a cap table against the underlying grants, because the cost of a miss here compounds across a portfolio.

Volume changes the shape of the problem. At ten documents you can hold the exceptions in your head. At four hundred you need the exceptions written down and checkable.

What we do about it

The register is the deliverable. A finding without an owner and a date is an observation, not a control.

In the current build this runs as part of the standard pass, so it applies to every document in the set rather than only the ones someone thought to check.

Where it breaks

Scanned originals with poor image quality remain the weakest input. So do agreements that were assembled from three precedents and never reconciled, which is common in long-lived supplier relationships.

The practical takeaway is narrow: write the exception down, point it at a source, and give it an owner.

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Working notes from the Lawrs team. General information about legal technology and practice, not legal advice.