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Field guide, May 2, 2026

Field guide: reading a cap table against the underlying grants

Priya RaghunathanDirector of Research6 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

We treat anything the system cannot ground in source text as unverified and show it as such. A visible gap is cheaper than a confident error.

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.

If you take one thing from this, make it the habit of checking the adjacent provision before you sign off the clause in front of you.

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