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The pre-send test Australia 4 min read

Cut what you cannot stand behind

A long document with one untrue point in it is a document the other side can answer by pointing at the untrue point. Everything else in it becomes suspect. If a sentence would not survive being read back to you in front of a registrar, it comes out now.

Use this when

A letter, complaint, submission or statement is finished and you are about to send or file it.

Leave with

A shorter document in which every sentence is one you could defend with a source, and a habit that protects your credibility across the whole matter.

Verify with

A barrister specialising in civil evidence.

The central rule

If you cannot prove it, or would not want to be asked about it, cut it.

Credibility in a legal matter is one account. Every accurate sentence adds to it a little. One sentence shown to be wrong draws on it heavily, and the withdrawal is remembered longer than anything else you wrote. Length is not strength. A page you can stand behind entirely beats ten pages with one hole.

The three questions

Read the finished document once more, sentence by sentence, asking:

  1. Can I point to the source? A document, a date, a row in the pinpoint table, or your own clear recollection stated as recollection. If the sentence states a fact and the answer is no, cut it or soften it to what you can honestly say: "I do not recall receiving" rather than "I never received".
  2. Is this what happened, or what I believe about it? "They ignored my email" is a belief. "I sent the email on 3 April and received no reply" is what happened. The evidence or submissions guide is the longer version of this question.
  3. Would I be comfortable being asked about this under oath? If the honest answer would be "well, roughly" about something the sentence states as precise, the sentence is not ready; a clearly stated estimate is a different thing and is fine.

Cut generously. A sentence that fails one question is not rescued by the two it passes.

Where weak sentences hide

  • Adverbs and intensifiers. "Clearly", "obviously", "repeatedly", "never". Each one is a claim with no source.
  • Motive. "They did this to pressure me." You know what they did. You do not know why.
  • Round numbers and approximate dates. "Dozens of times." "Around March." Count them, or find the date. Where you genuinely only recall roughly, say so in terms: "in about March 2026, I do not recall the exact date". Honest approximation is fine; false precision is not.
  • The point that felt good to write. It is usually the one that was added last and checked least.
  • Anything an AI tool drafted that you did not verify, in the documents where AI drafting is permitted at all (never affidavits or witness evidence). Fluent is not the same as true. The factual spine is the check.
Cutting is not conceding, and it is not hiding

Removing a point you cannot prove does not mean it is untrue. You may be able to raise it later if evidence turns up, though pleadings, directions and the rules of evidence can require the court's permission for that. Two things must never be cut for comfort: material you are required to disclose, and an honest answer that happens to be unhelpful. The test is what you can stand behind, not what you would prefer to leave out.

From Jordan's case file

Fictional example: The sentence that had to be withdrawn
Jordan's complaint to an industry body ran to forty paragraphs. Paragraph 31 said Meridian had "instructed its staff not to respond to my emails". He believed it. Two people had told him so. Meridian's response addressed paragraph 31 first. It attached three replies from staff, dated within the period, and invited the body to consider "the reliability of the complainant's other assertions in that light". The three replies were real. Jordan had forgotten them. He withdrew paragraph 31 in writing. The other thirty-nine paragraphs were accurate and sourced, and the complaint went on. But the withdrawal was the first thing in the file, and it coloured the reading of everything after it. His complaints now go through the three questions the night before they are sent, and anything that fails comes out.

Checklist

  • Every factual sentence traceable to a source you could produce
  • Beliefs about motive and pattern converted to what happened, with dates
  • Intensifiers removed; numbers and dates made exact where you can, and honestly qualified as estimates where you cannot
  • The sentence that felt best to write checked hardest
  • Anything failing a question cut, not softened into vagueness
General information only, not legal advice. Statements in affidavits and some other documents carry legal consequences if untrue; sworn evidence must be your own account in your own words. All names, documents and events in the examples are fictional. Last reviewed: September 2026.