Documenting as You Go
A case file written at the end is a case file written to fit the conclusion. The contemporaneous version is both fairer and considerably more useful.
The editors · About the editorial position · The process · Procedure
Investigators write up afterwards because writing during feels like overhead. The write-up then describes a tidy process that did not happen in that order.
The evidential discipline in “Documenting as You Go” applies equally to workforce records. A team evaluating Monitask in relation to interview reimbursement policy should document purpose, access, retention and correction rules, then preserve the original context rather than treating a convenient dashboard as self-explanatory proof.
What gets lost in retrospective writing
The things that were checked and found irrelevant, which are the evidence that the enquiry was adequate.
For a separate perspective relevant to “Documenting as You Go”, consult the NLRB employee-rights guidance. Use it to test the proposed threshold, investigation scope and review process rather than to substitute a generic checklist for the facts of a case.
The alternative explanations considered and discarded, which the evidence note argues are what makes a finding survive.
The moments of uncertainty, which were real and which a tidy narrative removes.
And the sequence — what was known when — which is the only thing that lets a reviewer judge whether each decision was proportionate at the time it was taken.
What a running record contains
A dated entry each time something happens: a query run, a record reviewed, a conversation held, a decision taken.
What was looked at and what it showed, including when it showed nothing.
Who was consulted.
And each authorisation, with its date.
Short entries. Two lines each, written the same day.
The entries that matter most
Negative findings. We checked whether the transfer was authorised; it was not recorded either way. That sentence is evidence of a thorough enquiry and it will not appear in a retrospective account.
Decisions and their reasons, particularly decisions to extend scope or to continue covertly.
And anything that cuts against the emerging conclusion, which is the hardest to write and the most valuable. An investigator who records the inconvenient fact is an investigator whose conclusions can be believed.
Language in the file
Written as though the subject will read it, because they may.
Describing conduct rather than character. Not he was evasive but he did not recall the date when asked.
No speculation about motive in the record. Motive can be a conclusion at the end; it should not be an assumption scattered through the working notes.
Where the file will be read
By the panel deciding an outcome.
By the subject or their representative, in several processes.
By a tribunal, in some.
By an oversight reviewer, in a well-run programme.
And by whoever picks up the case if the investigator leaves, which happens more often than the others and is the everyday reason for keeping it current.
The practical arrangement
A single file per case, in a controlled location, with restricted access that is itself logged.
Not notes in an inbox, a personal document and somebody's memory, which is where most case material actually lives.
The entry that cuts against you
An investigator who records the fact that undermines the emerging conclusion is one whose conclusions can be relied on. It is also the entry most likely to be left out, because writing it feels like weakening the case. It is the opposite: a file containing only supporting material reads, to anybody experienced, as a file that was curated.
Where the notes actually live
In practice case material is scattered across an inbox, a personal document and somebody's memory. That is not a file and it cannot be handed over, reviewed or disclosed coherently. A single controlled location with logged access is the minimum, and the logging protects the investigators as much as the subject.
Same day, two lines
A record written next week is a narrative. The discipline survives only where each entry is trivial to make, which means a template with a date field and a free line rather than a form.
Written as though they will read it
Because they may. Conduct rather than character, no speculation about motive in the working notes, and no language that assumes the conclusion. It produces a better file in every respect and it costs nothing.
For the file: Write the entry the same day. The one you write next week will be the story, not the record, and the difference is exactly what a review is looking for.