An evidence map that shows which facts have nothing behind them.
Free, no account, and usable in any spreadsheet. A folder tells you what you have. This tells you what you are missing.
What a prepared record contains
Illustrative
An evidence map is a table linking each record you hold to the specific fact it supports, along with who holds it and whether it has arrived. Organizing evidence this way rather than by folder makes one thing visible that storage cannot show you: which parts of the account have no supporting record at all.
Absence is the part a folder cannot show you.
Storage is organized around records that exist. That makes it good at retrieval and useless for the question that decides whether a matter is ready, which is what has nothing behind it.
Pointing each record at the fact it supports inverts the problem. Any event with no row pointing at it is unsupported, and that is visible at a glance instead of being discovered late.
- Which fact does this record actually support
- Which facts have no record at all
- What was requested weeks ago and never arrived
- Which records disagree with the account
Two questions a folder cannot answer
Which of the events in my chronology are supported by nothing, and which of my outstanding requests has gone unanswered longest? Both are properties of the links between records and facts, not of the records themselves.
| Record | Record type | Who holds it | Status | Supports which event | Relationship | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Police report #2024-1188 | Incident report | Responding agency | Held | Rear-end collision at a stop light | Supports | Timestamp differs from the account by 40 minutes |
| Treatment records | Medical record | Treating provider | Requested | First treatment for neck pain | Supports | Second request sent |
| Employer wage statement | Employment record | Employer payroll | Missing | Employer told of missed shifts | Would support | No response yet |
A worked example. The Missing row is doing the most work here.
A record does not always help.
This is the column most evidence lists leave out, and the one that makes the table worth keeping.
Supports
The record corroborates the event as described.
Contradicts
The record disagrees with the account. Recording this honestly is the point. A conflict understood early is manageable; the same conflict found under questioning is not.
Mentions
The event appears in the record without being substantiated by it. Common with correspondence.
Would support
A record that does not exist yet but would back this event if obtained. This is what turns the map into a request list.
Questions about the evidence map.
- How is this different from just listing my documents?
- A list is organized around documents you have. This is organized around facts, so a fact with no document attached is visible as an empty space rather than being invisible.
- What do I do with a record that contradicts my account?
- Record it and mark the relationship as Contradicts. Most contradictions turn out to be ordinary imprecision in recollection, but a lawyer needs to know about them early rather than encounter them later.
- Can I use this alongside the timeline template?
- They are designed to be used together. The "Supports which event" column names a row from the timeline, which is what connects the two tables.
Where this leads next.
- Evidence trackingLink documents to the facts they supportRead on
- ImmigrationCollect a multi-session account with honest date confidence, tracked affidavit requests, and translation status held against each supporting record.Read on
- Prepare facts for a lawyerOrganize a timeline and evidence before speaking with counselRead on
Maintained automatically as records arrive.
MatterGraph keeps this map from the intake itself, so a gap becomes tracked work rather than a cell someone has to notice.