Commission the right size of work.
The fixed First Record Review is a defined starting point, not an unlimited investigation. Larger collections, public-record retrieval, multiple projects, interviews, specialist opinions and ongoing research need a separate written scope and fee. The service pages explain the decisions each route is intended to support.
Choose the next decision, not the largest collection.
You already have records and one question: the First Record Review is the bounded starting point. If the question spans several projects or needs more than 100 pages, agree a separate scope or a useful 100-page subset first.
The decisive records are missing: project intelligence can be scoped around lawful sources, a focused request plan and an agreed retrieval budget. Buying the fixed review does not include public-record fees or guarantee access.
The question concerns access, handover or recovery: infrastructure assurance is separately scoped around the authorized systems and the decision owner. No technical access or production change follows from an enquiry.
Outputs made for the next person.
An owner needs a decision, counsel needs a source and its limit, and an adviser needs to understand what would change the recommendation. We structure the brief so those views can be checked against the same chronology and records, rather than separate versions of the story.
Research is not a verdict.
A project credit is not a responsibility finding. A cost difference is not automatically a recoverable loss. We distinguish what a source states, what is checked, what is inferred and what is unresolved. Legal advice, representation, expert-witness opinion and guaranteed recovery are outside the First Record Review.