What is found in any search depends, in part, on what was being looked for. The query shapes the answer in ways that are not always obvious to the searcher. A search begun under the assumption that a person's wealth is structured in a particular way will find evidence consistent with that structure more readily than evidence inconsistent with it. The risk is real and the corrections are deliberate.

A careful assessment proceeds, in part, by writing down the priors before beginning the work. What is presently believed about the client's position. What is taken as a given. What is assumed about their advisors, their structures, their habits. The act of writing them down makes them available for revision when the record produces facts that contradict them.

A particular hazard is the tendency to anchor on the first significant finding. An early discovery (a notable filing, an unexpected connection, a striking record) shapes the search that follows. Subsequent records are read in light of the early finding and may be over-weighted toward consistency with it. The corrective is to continue the work past the comfortable point at which the picture appears settled.

A second hazard is the tendency to follow leads rather than scope. A search that follows leads will go where the records are dense; a search defined by scope will cover the territory whether the records are dense or sparse. The first method is more interesting; the second method is more reliable.

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The desk's assessments are designed around the second method. Coverage of the territory is the standard, and the priors are written down before the work begins. The result is an assessment that is less suspenseful than a curious reader might prefer but that the desk can stand behind across the situations its clients face.

The desk's assessments reflect this kind of reading, conducted slowly and with the corroboration the work demands.