The pinpoint table

Use this when

You are about to tell a court, the other side, or an AI tool what a document, transcript or witness said.

Leave with

A table you can hand up, paste into a submission, or check a draft against in seconds.

Verify with

A barrister specialising in evidence and written advocacy.

The central rule

Open it. Find it. Quote it. Then cite the place.

A passage remembered is a passage that has drifted. Every time you rely on what a document says, the reference comes from the document open in front of you, not from your notes, your last draft, or your certainty. The citation guide applies this to case law. This guide applies it to everything else.

The table

Four columns. Keep one per matter, or one per hearing if the matter is large.

Fictional extract — Jordan Lee, hearing of 14 August 2026

WhereExact wordsLabel

Transcript 14 Aug, p 12 ll 18–21"If the deletion is contested, the parties are to confer and, failing agreement, the matter is to be relisted before me."Registrar: contested deletion → relist

Doyle affidavit 2 Sep, para 14"approved in accordance with Meridian's usual process"Doyle asserts: approval process exists

Meridian letter 25 Sep, p 1 para 2"the approval process is internal and confidential"Meridian: process confidential (cf. para 14)

Jordan email 9 Jul, line 3"I have no objection to the March email being included in the court book."Jordan: inclusion only, not admissibility

Where is precise enough for a stranger to find in ten seconds: document, date, page, line or paragraph.
Exact words are exact. Copied, not paraphrased, with quotation marks. If you must shorten, use an ellipsis and keep the words either side.
Label is your plain description of what the words do. It is the only column that contains your view.
Add a fourth column for the source filename if your naming system does not make it obvious.

Using it

At a hearing, the table is what you read from when you say "your Honour said at page 12 that…", and what you may hand up as an aid where the court's directions allow it; it is a submissions aid, not evidence. Transcripts in some courts must be purchased or are restricted; build the table where you have lawful access to the transcript. In a submission, each cited fact carries its "where" in brackets. In an AI session, the table is what you give the tool instead of your memory, and what you check its output against; the factual spine is built from it. The upload check applies to the table itself: a quotation or paraphrase from compelled material carries the same restriction as the document, so those rows stay out of any tool.

The table works on you too. Your own emails go in it, because the other side will quote them, and you want to have read the exact words before they do. The limited consent guide is what to do with what you find.

One row, one source

If you cannot find the words, the row does not exist. Do not write what you think it said and plan to check later. Later is when you are standing up.

From Jordan's case file

Fictional example: Page 5 was page 12

For three weeks Jordan's notes said the registrar's direction about contested deletion was "at page 5". It appeared in two drafts and one letter. The night before the hearing he opened the transcript to build the table and could not find it on page 5. It was on page 12, and the wording was narrower than he remembered: "failing agreement", not "on request". He fixed the letter before it went. At the hearing, when Meridian's counsel said the direction had been "a general indication", Jordan read lines 18 to 21 from page 12. The registrar did not need to check. The table now gets built the day a transcript arrives, not the night before it is needed.

Checklist

Every quotation you rely on has a row: where, exact words, label
Every row built with the source open, never from a draft or notes
Your own words in the table as well as theirs
Drafts and submissions checked against the table before they leave
Table rebuilt or extended the day a new transcript, affidavit or letter arrives

General information only, not legal advice. How transcripts, affidavits and exhibits are cited in your court is set by its rules and practice notes. All names, documents and events in the examples are fictional. Last reviewed: September 2026.