For the Hong Kong bar
Marshall is a research and matter workspace for barristers and their clerks. Every proposition it puts forward carries the authorities and passages it came from, so counsel can check the reasoning before it becomes advice.
Marshall assists the work. The practitioner reviews it and remains responsible for it.
Illustrative answer
Begin with the words of the provision read in their context and against the purpose the legislature had in view.1
Where the authorities are not all one way, identify the distinction that separates them before the competing lines of reasoning are weighed.2
State the stronger view, then the facts and findings on the record that would qualify it.3
Wording shown for illustration only. It is not advice and is not drawn from any real matter.
How it works
Ask the question as you would put it to a junior, or attach the material the question turns on.
Each proposition carries its authorities and passages. Read them at the pinpoint rather than taking the summary on trust.
Correct, cut and finish the draft, then export it to Word or PDF for chambers, the instructing solicitor or the bundle.
Research
Marshall does not ask counsel to accept a conclusion on faith. The material behind an answer stays one click away, in the matter it belongs to.
01 / Answers
An answer arrives with the authorities and the passages it was built from, cited to the point relied on, so counsel can turn to the judgment itself and form their own view.
02 / Source Library
Authorities saved by anyone in chambers sit in one library. A citation or a party name typed into the search finds the judgment directly, so what one member has already pulled up is there for the next.
03 / Long records
Transcripts, expert reports and exhibit bundles are read through rather than skimmed from the first pages, which is what makes a point buried at page nine hundred findable at all.
Matters
Each matter has its own document library, organised into the categories a barrister already works in rather than one undifferentiated folder.
The same structure serves a writ action, an arbitration and an appeal, so a clerk filing material does not have to invent a scheme for each new brief.
Work product
Events are drawn from the documents in the matter, and each one carries the reference it came from. Counsel verifies every entry against its source before the chronology is used.
Set statements, drafts or versions of an agreement against one another and see where they part company.
Assemble the material for a hearing from the matter's own libraries.
Export the reviewed draft to Word or PDF when it is ready to leave the workspace.
A Microsoft Word add-in brings the same workspace alongside the document being drafted, for those who write in Word and would rather not leave it.
Confidence and control
Request access
Marshall is opened to practising barristers, their chambers and the clerks who run them. Tell us who you are and we will follow up.
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