adr-sml/docs/01-architecture.md

# 01 — Information architecture

Authority: `AGENTS.md` §3 D5 (full multi-page), §6, §5 (audience model).
Every claim in the copy outlines below must clear `AGENTS.md` §4.

---

## Why multi-page at all

The site being replaced is one scrolling page. One page can hold one title, one
meta description, one canonical URL, and one primary topic. It therefore gets
one shot at a search result.

The practice's target searches are not "Toronto mediator" — that term is owned by
retired judges with twenty years of name recognition, and the strategy brief is
explicit that competing there is the wrong game (§II). The winnable searches are
specific: *construction lien mediation Ontario*, *SaaS contract arbitration
Canada*, *SABS mediation Toronto*, *technology dispute neutral*, *Farsi-speaking
mediator*. Each of those wants its own page, its own title, its own copy, and its
own structured data.

That is the entire argument for the structure below. It is a discoverability
decision, not an aesthetic one.

---

## Sitemap

```
/                                Home
/about/                          Biography, credentials, the professional record
/mediation/                      Mediation — the process, formats, rules
/arbitration/                    Arbitration — the process, tracks, rules
/med-arb/                        Med-Arb and hybrid processes
/practice/                       Practice areas index
/practice/construction/          Construction and infrastructure disputes
/practice/technology/            Technology, AI, and data disputes
/practice/energy/                Energy, grid, and regulatory disputes
/practice/insurance/             Insurance, SABS, and accident benefits
/practice/shareholder/           Shareholder, partnership, and family business
/practice/cross-cultural/        Cross-border and diaspora disputes
/process/                        What an engagement looks like, step by step
/fees/                           Fee schedule and engagement terms
/for-parties/                    Plain language: what mediation actually is
/insights/                       Article index
/insights/[slug]/                Individual articles
/contact/                        Intake form and booking
/legal/privacy/                  Privacy policy — PIPEDA
/legal/terms/                    Terms of use
```

Nineteen fixed URLs plus one per article.

### URL rules

- Lowercase, hyphenated, trailing slash, no file extensions.
- `/practice/<area>/` is a stable namespace — new practice areas slot in without
  touching anything else.
- `/insights/<slug>/` — no dates in the path. A dated URL makes a piece look
  stale at 18 months, and this content is mostly evergreen.
- Never change a published URL. If one must move, ship a CloudFront Function
  301 and record it in the Change Log.

### Navigation

**Primary (header).** About · Mediation · Arbitration · Practice · Fees ·
Insights · Contact

"Practice" is a dropdown to the six areas, with `/practice/` itself reachable.
Build it as a `<details>` element or a CSS-only disclosure — no JavaScript.

**Footer.** Full sitemap in three columns, plus contact block, professional
designations, LinkedIn, privacy, terms, and the SML Company Ltd. entity line.

**Deliberately not in primary nav:** `/process/`, `/for-parties/`, `/med-arb/`.
These are linked contextually from the pages that lead to them. Seven items is
the ceiling before a nav stops being scannable.

---

## Deliberate omission: Indigenous engagement

The strategy brief (§III.4) rates Indigenous engagement, IBA, and consultation-
breakdown mediation as *"strategically the most valuable single niche"* for a
Q.Med on the C.Med-Arb pathway.

There is no page for it at launch, on the following reasoning:

The brief itself says the niche *"requires deliberate relationship work with
First Nations advisors, federal and provincial engagement staff, and corporate
proponents over a multi-year horizon."* A practice page is a claim of present
capability. Publishing one before that relationship work exists would be read as
exactly what it is by the audience best positioned to notice — and that audience
is small, well-connected, and unforgiving of practitioners who arrive claiming a
seat. The cost of getting this wrong is much higher than the cost of waiting.

Revisit at month 12–18, once there is relationship history to point to.
**This reasoning is Claude's, recorded for Pouya's decision — not yet his call.**

## Not a practice area yet: tax-adjacent disputes

**Canadian Tax Foundation membership is verified** (`AGENTS.md` §4, 2026-08-26)
and it is the one credential none of the six areas above touch. Tax-adjacent
disputes are genuinely ADR territory — valuation and purchase-price disputes on
a share sale, indemnity and earn-out fights that turn on a tax position,
shareholder splits where the assessment is the thing actually in dispute.

**There is no seventh practice page at launch,** for the same reason as the
section above and not a weaker one: a practice page is a claim of present
capability, and there is no track record to point at. A membership is a
credential, not a caseload.

It belongs on `/about/` with the other memberships. Revisit at the **month
12–18 review, alongside the Indigenous engagement decision** — one review, two
candidates. Tracked as `AGENTS.md` R3.

---

## Page specifications

Each page below gives its job, its primary audience, its target search intent,
and its section outline. Copy itself is in `03-content-spec.md`.

### `/` — Home

**Job:** establish the unusual stack in under ten seconds, and route each of the
four audiences to its surface.
**Audience:** all four; leans in-house counsel.
**Search intent:** brand and name searches; "Toronto ADR practice".

1. **Hero.** Eyebrow (`Mediation · Arbitration · Toronto`), display headline,
   two-sentence positioning paragraph, two CTAs (*Request a consultation* /
   *How I work*), portrait.
2. **Credential row.** Three slots: `Q.Med` · `JD + ML` · `EN · FA`. Never
   matter counts — `AGENTS.md` §4.
3. **The approach.** The "two directions at once" argument — law and engineering
   converging on the same dispute. ⚠️ **The noun pair "law and engineering" is
   the construction Q37 struck and Q41(a) extended to prose. The argument
   stands; do not lift the phrase into copy** — it reached `/` once already.
   State the asymmetry instead: `docs/03` §The credential row. Infinity mark as the visual anchor.
4. **Two practices.** Mediation and Arbitration cards → `/mediation/`, `/arbitration/`.
   Med-Arb named here as the long-term arc, linking to `/med-arb/`.
5. **Practice areas.** Six-card grid → `/practice/*`. This is the most important
   block on the page for search, because it distributes authority to the pages
   that can actually rank.
6. **Process preview.** Compressed five-step strip → `/process/`.
7. **Latest insights.** Three most recent → `/insights/`. **NOT BUILT AT STEP
   2, and it arrives at STEP 7 with the collection it lists.** `ArticleCard` and
   the drafted slate (D9) land in the same step; rendering the section against an
   empty collection means shipping a component's scoped CSS to every visitor for
   a block with nothing in it, plus a props surface with no call site.
   `SiteHeader` already gates the Insights **nav** item on the same collection,
   so the page section and the nav item appear together. Recorded here as well
   as in the page source, because "eight sections specified, seven built" should
   not be discoverable only by reading the file that deviates.
8. **Contact band.** Intake CTA and booking link.

### `/about/` — Biography and credentials

**Job:** be the page an appointing body or opposing counsel reads before agreeing
to an appointment. This page carries the verifiable record.
**Audience:** appointing bodies, ADR institutions, opposing counsel.
**Search intent:** `"Pouya Lajevardi"`, `Pouya Lajevardi mediator`.

1. Portrait, name, designation line.
2. **Narrative biography**, 400–600 words. The three-track story — law,
   engineering, operating a company — told as one arc rather than three lists.
3. **Credentials**, structured and scannable: designations, education,
   certifications, memberships. Every line from `AGENTS.md` §4 Verified.
4. **The credentialing arc.** Q.Med held → Q.Arb **commenced August 2026** →
   C.Med-Arb as the
   endpoint. The brief (§V) treats the arc itself as part of the story; say so
   openly rather than implying a finished state.
5. **Languages and cross-cultural practice.**
6. **Speaking and publications.** Omit the section entirely until there is
   something in it. An empty "Speaking" heading is worse than no heading.
7. `Person` JSON-LD. Downloadable one-page PDF bio — brief §VIII lists this as
   an asset for circulation with appointment proposals.

> **The PDF bio ships at BUILD STEP 9, alongside `/fees/` — deferred by Pouya
> 2026-08-28 (Q45), tracked as `AGENTS.md` §12 **R16**.** His reasoning: it is a
> derived artefact, so building it before `/about/` and `/fees/` are final means
> building it twice, and an appointment proposal needs the fee card as much as
> the bio. The two decisions below are **not** settled by the deferral and travel
> with R16. Original note follows, and its reasoning is why this is R16 rather
> than a to-do. **The PDF bio does NOT ship with build step 3, and the omission
> is stated rather than silent** — `AGENTS.md` Q45, opened 2026-08-28. No such file exists
> in the repo, and a link to one that does not exist is a broken link on the
> page an appointing body reads. It is also not a formatting job: a one-page bio
> is a **credential document** whose every line has to trace to §4 exactly as a
> web page does, and it will be circulated detached from the site, where no
> reviewer sees it again. Two decisions are Pouya's — whether it is generated at
> build (a dependency, against R11) or authored once as a designed artefact, and
> whether it carries anything the site does not. Everything else on this page
> ships.

### `/mediation/`

**Job:** convert counsel who have already decided on mediation and are choosing a
neutral.
**Search intent:** `commercial mediator Toronto`, `ADRIC mediation rules`,
`what happens at mediation Ontario`.

1. What the service is; the neutral's role stated plainly.
2. **Formats:** full-day, half-day, shuttle, remote, hybrid.
3. **Rules:** ADRIC Model Mediation Rules, or a bespoke protocol agreed by the
   parties.
4. **What parties should bring** — briefs, documents, authority to settle.
5. **Confidentiality and without-prejudice framing.**
6. Practice areas → `/practice/*`.
7. Fees → `/fees/`. Booking → `/contact/`.

### `/arbitration/`

**Job:** the same, for arbitration — and to state the Q.Arb position honestly.
**Search intent:** `sole arbitrator Ontario`, `expedited arbitration Canada`,
`documents-only arbitration`.

1. What the service is; sole-arbitrator and party-appointed
   appointments.
2. **Tracks:** documents-only, expedited, full hearing.
3. **Rules:** ADRIC, ADR Chambers, ad hoc.
4. Awards — form, reasoning, timing.
5. **Credentialing status, stated plainly.** The Q.Arb pathway **commenced
   August 2026**; the page says so in those words. *"In progress" was the
   wording here until 2026-08-28 and it is barred — `docs/06`'s own cutover
   checklist says "§4's wording, not the looser 'in progress'", and this is the
   spec for the page that has to get it right.* **What is available now is all three forms — sole,
   party-appointed and co-arbitration** — and `AGENTS.md` §4 Offerings carries a
   row for each `[verified 2026-08-26 — Pouya]`. The page states that alongside
   the credentialing stage: Q.Arb commenced August 2026, C.Med-Arb is the
   endpoint. §4 Offerings: **neither half may be dropped.** Honesty here is a
   differentiator, not a weakness — and misstating it in either direction is a
   conduct problem.
   *(This paragraph read "(co-arbitration, co-arbitration)" until 2026-08-26 —
   edited without being re-read — and then carried a caveat against Q36 for
   several hours after Q36 closed. Both are recorded because the pattern is the
   same one: an edit that was not re-read against the register.)*
6. Fees, booking.

### `/med-arb/`

**Job:** own a term few Canadian neutrals explain well, and frame the C.Med-Arb
endpoint.
**Search intent:** `med-arb Canada`, `what is med-arb`, `arb-med`.

1. What Med-Arb is; how it differs from Arb-Med.
2. The procedural fairness objection, addressed head-on rather than elided.
3. When it fits and when it does not.
4. The C.Med-Arb designation and why it is the practice's stated endpoint.

This page is a strong candidate for the best-performing page on the site.
Search demand exists, competition is thin, and it maps exactly to the brand's
long-term narrative.

### `/practice/` — index

Six cards, one paragraph each, linking onward. Also the natural home for the
"also offered" strip: **early neutral evaluation, dispute-system design, and
pre-dispute technical advisory** — three, and each has an `AGENTS.md` §4
Offerings row.

> 🚫 **THE STRIP MAY NOT SHIP YET, AND HAVING A ROW IS NOT WHAT UNBLOCKS IT.**
> All three rows read **"GATES 0 AND 2 ANSWERED; GATE 1 STILL HAS NO SOURCE —
> NOT YET PUBLISHABLE"**. Pouya ruled on 2026-08-28 that all three pass; §4's
> gate 1 asks *is the activity gated?*, which the register answers with a
> checkable source and not with a ruling, and **no source exists for any of the
> three**. Tracked as **Q46(a)**, which names this strip as the thing it blocks.
>
> This paragraph read *"each now has a §4 Offerings row, which is what the strip
> needs before it may ship"* until 2026-08-28 — **false as stated**, and it would
> have had an implementer at step 5 ship three offerings the register marks
> unpublishable. Found by `claims-auditor` on re-audit.

> **`settlement counsel` IS STRUCK FROM THIS STRIP AND MUST NOT BE RESTORED.**
> `AGENTS.md` Q42, 2026-08-27. Pouya struck it as his own error in this document:
>
> > "Settlement counsel acts **FOR a party** in negotiation. That is a partisan
> > role, and putting it on a site that (a) sells neutrality and (b) asserts no
> > licensure under D13 is **wrong twice over**: it undercuts the brand's
> > central claim and it edges into acting for a client."
>
> Note which objection comes first. This is not primarily a compliance problem —
> it is a **positioning** problem, and it would have been wrong on a site with
> no licensure question at all. The compliance half is the aggravation, not the
> reason. Never priced, never offered, never listed: it is a struck row in §4
> Offerings so that a later reader finds the decision rather than the gap.

### `/practice/construction/`

**Search intent:** `construction lien mediation Ontario`, `delay claim mediation`,
`subcontract dispute arbitration Toronto`.

Dispute types (lien, delay, change orders, scheduling, subcontract, deficiency);
what active litigation exposure in the same matters brings to the room; the
Ontario megaproject pipeline as context — Darlington SMR, Bruce C, data centres,
transit; typical process shape. Strongest immediate fit per brief §III.1.

### `/practice/technology/`

**Search intent:** `SaaS dispute arbitration Canada`, `AI vendor dispute`,
`data residency dispute resolution`, `software contract mediator`.

The differentiator page. Dispute types: software contracts, SLA and MSA
breakdowns, data residency and processing, AI vendor diligence, cloud
sub-processor disputes, IP and licensing.

**Write this page in the register the brief demands:** a neutral who can read an
API trace, a model card, or a System Impact Assessment on the same page as the
contract. The brief warns explicitly against softening this to "technologically
literate" — the claim is engineering practice, so the copy says engineering
practice.

### `/practice/energy/`

**Search intent:** `Bill 40 dispute`, `IESO dispute resolution`,
`OEB leave to construct dispute`, `grid connection dispute Ontario`.

Grid connection and allocation, leave-to-construct, proponent–municipality
disputes, IESO market participation, data-centre connection allocation. Brief
§III.2 frames this as a 24–36 month build. **Write it as a genuine position, not
a claim of existing volume.**

### `/practice/insurance/`

**Search intent:** `SABS mediation`, `LAT pre-hearing mediation`,
`accident benefits mediator Ontario`, `MIG dispute`.

> ⚠️ **`LAT pre-hearing mediation` IS A SEARCH INTENT AND NOTHING ELSE. It must
> never be published as an offering** — `AGENTS.md` Q41(c), closed 2026-08-27,
> verified 2026-08-28 against the Tribunal's own materials and extracted into
> **`docs/reference/lat-case-conference.md`**. It reached `src/data/site.ts` as a
> service blurb once already; this note exists because a search-intent list is
> where that lift starts.
>
> What the verification found, in one line each:
>
> - **LAT Rule 2.4:** *"'Case Conference' has the same meaning as 'Pre-Hearing
>   Conference' as defined in the SPPA."* **"Pre-hearing" is the Tribunal's own
>   label**, and what it labels is a case conference.
> - **Rule 14.3:** a **Member** presides and is then disqualified from the
>   hearing panel; **Rule 14.6:** parties must attend. The neutral is the
>   Tribunal's. A privately retained one is not appointed to it and cannot be.
> - The LAT Rules contain **zero** occurrences of `mediat` or `arbitrat` —
>   0 in 66,593 characters. The concept is not in them.
> - The LAT-AABS page itself, though, says: *"Before you apply to the LAT-AABS,
>   you may want to consider negotiation or mediation services… including before
>   filing at the LAT-AABS, and continuing… after a claim has been filed."*
>   **That is the affirmative basis for the offering, in the Tribunal's words.**
>
> **The page must state that the mediation offered is PRIVATE, retained by the
> parties, and is not the Tribunal's case conference.** Published blurb:
> *"Accident benefits and SABS entitlement, MIG disputes, and private mediation
> alongside a LAT application, before filing or after."* If Pouya holds a roster
> position that makes more than that true, it is a §4 addition — absent a row,
> it is not.

Highest realistic near-term volume — it flows directly from the existing
personal-injury and SABS work, and brief §IV.7 notes the segment is
underserved by senior mediators. Unglamorous and worth doing well.

### `/practice/shareholder/`

**Search intent:** `shareholder dispute mediation Ontario`,
`partnership dissolution mediator`, `family business succession dispute`.

Shareholder and partnership disputes, co-founder breakdowns, family-business
succession, SME exits. The operator angle — running SML Company Ltd. alongside
the practice — is the differentiator here.

**"Family Business" means COMMERCIAL disputes among family shareholders, and the
page must say so.** Pouya's ruling of 2026-08-27 (`AGENTS.md` Q39): the label
covers shareholder and partnership disputes, co-founder breakdowns and business
succession — **not** family law. **Family arbitration under the *Family Law Act*
is not offered**, and that activity is separately gated by prescribed training
(`docs/reference/ontario-family-arbitration-training.md`), so the exclusion has
to be legible rather than left to be inferred from the surrounding nouns.

**One sentence, not a section.** His instruction, and the reason is also the test
for whether it belongs at all: *"The page should say plainly that family law
matters are not accepted. One sentence, not a section: it saves a wasted intake
call, which is the only reason it earns its place."* A disclaimer that grows into
a paragraph reads as defensive, which is the opposite of the point.

### `/practice/cross-cultural/`

**Search intent:** `Farsi speaking mediator Toronto`,
`Iranian Canadian business dispute`, `diaspora shareholder dispute`.

Note that D4 makes the site English-only. This page describes Farsi-language
capability in English; it is not a Farsi page. Diaspora family-business
succession, dual-jurisdiction shareholder disputes, partnership disputes among
diaspora entrepreneurs, cross-cultural commercial matters.

### `/process/`

Five steps, from intake to conclusion: confidential intake (day 0) · engagement
and framing (1–7) · pre-session exchange (7–21) · the session (21–30) · binding
conclusion (30+). Also: conflicts checking, confidentiality, and what happens if
a matter does not settle.

**The timings are published as the TYPICAL shape of an engagement, explicitly
not a guarantee** — `AGENTS.md` Q43, Pouya 2026-08-27. Render `PROCESS_FRAMING`
(`src/data/site.ts`) **adjacent to the steps**, on this page and on `/`. The
numbers above are unchanged; what is required is that they never appear
unframed. *"Published as typical, they are honest and useful; published as
commitments, the first matter that slips makes the page false."*

### `/fees/`

**Unblocked — `AGENTS.md` Q4/Q14 answered (D14). Build from the confirmed card
in `docs/07-fees.md`; still do not invent numbers.**

Hourly rate; half-day and full-day mediation; preparation time policy;
cancellation terms; administrative fee; HST treatment; who pays and how costs
are shared between parties; payment terms. A real page with real numbers, or a
`TODO(pouya)` — nothing in between.

### `/for-parties/`

**Job:** serve the self-represented tier without diluting the counsel-facing
pages. Plain language, short sentences, no jargon.

What mediation is · what it is not · who the mediator is and is not (not your
lawyer, not a judge) · what happens on the day · what it costs · what happens if
you do not settle · how to prepare.

### `/insights/` and `/insights/[slug]/`

Astro content collection, MDX. Index reverse-chronological with topic filtering
by practice area.

Article frontmatter: `title`, `seoTitle` (optional), `description`,
`publishDate`, `updatedDate`, `topics[]`, `practiceAreas[]`, `readingTime`,
`image` and `imageAlt` (both optional, but `imageAlt` is **required whenever
`image` is set**), `draft`, `reviewedByPouya`.

`title` is the headline and, for articles, the `<title>` — they carry no
` · Pouya Lajevardi` suffix; see `04-seo-spec.md` for why. `seoTitle` replaces
it when a headline that reads well falls outside 50–60. `src/content.config.ts`
enforces the rendered length and names the offending string in the error.

Dates are date-only ISO (`2026-08-01`), parsed as UTC and round-tripped, so a
typo fails the build rather than shipping as 1970 or as the wrong day.

`reviewedByPouya` carries D9: the schema refuses to build an entry with
`draft: false` and `reviewedByPouya: false`.

Content territories, from brief §VII: process explainers · regulatory commentary ·
industry-specific dispute commentary · anonymised reflections · technical
explainers for lawyers · credentialing and career-arc content.

`Article` JSON-LD with `author` pointing at the `Person` entity. Each article
links to the relevant practice-area page — this is what turns the blog into
ranking power for the pages that convert.

**The section stays out of primary navigation until at least two pieces are
live.** An empty blog signals abandonment more loudly than no blog signals
anything.

### `/contact/`

Intake form (`05-backend-spec.md`), booking embed, direct email
(Q3 — **there is no public phone number**; render `CONTACT.phoneFallback`,
"By scheduled call", wherever a number would go), Toronto by-appointment line, response-time expectation, and an explicit
note that submitting the form does not create a retainer or a mediator–party
relationship and does not itself create a conflict check.

### `/legal/privacy/` and `/legal/terms/`

Required, not optional — the intake form collects personal information about
identifiable third parties in live legal disputes. What is collected, why, where
it is stored (DynamoDB, region), retention period, who can access it, how to
request deletion, and the contact for privacy inquiries. Must match what the
backend actually does.

---

## Build order

Dependency-ordered, so nothing is blocked mid-stream:

1. Scaffold, tokens, base layout, header, footer, SEO component
2. `/` — proves the design system end to end
3. `/about/` — the credential spine everything else references
4. `/mediation/`, `/arbitration/`, `/med-arb/`
5. `/practice/` and the six area pages
6. `/process/`, `/for-parties/`
7. `/insights/` plumbing, then the drafted articles
8. `/contact/` and the intake backend
9. `/fees/` — last, though no longer blocked: D14 confirmed the card
10. `/legal/*` — written to match the backend as actually built
11. Audit and cutover (`06-deployment.md`)