adr-sml/docs/03-content-spec.md

03 — Content and voice

Authority: AGENTS.md §4 (claim register) and §5 (audience model). Source material: PL_ADR_Personal_Branding_Strategy_Brief.docx (2026-05-26) and ADR_Site_Content_Brief_for_Claude_Design.md (2026-05-26).

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The one rule

Every factual claim traces to AGENTS.md §4 Verified. Read the Forbidden table before writing any number, statistic, or superlative. If you need a fact you do not have, write TODO(pouya): <exact question> and log it in §9. Do not infer, do not soften, do not carry anything over from the old site.

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Voice

Restrained, precise, and unhedged. The reader is usually a lawyer. They detect padding instantly and discount everything after it.

Do:

• Short declaratives. "I read the contract and the code." Not "clients benefit from a uniquely multidisciplinary perspective."
• First person singular. This is a practitioner brand — "I", not "we", not "the practice". The old site's "we" implied a firm that does not exist.
• Concrete nouns. Lien claim. Change order. System Impact Assessment. Model card. Minutes of settlement. Specificity is the credential.
• Name the limits. "Sole-arbitrator appointments follow the Q.Arb designation; co-arbitration work is available now." The first half traces to §4; the second does not — AGENTS.md Q36. Keep the shape of the sentence, which is the point being made here, and do not publish the second clause until Q36 closes. (No tribunal-secretary work — D14 removed the rate and bars offering it; see docs/07-fees.md.) Precision about what you cannot yet do makes the rest believable.
• Plain words over Latin. "Without prejudice" survives because it is a term of art; inter alia does not.

Do not:

• Any claim or implication of legal licensure. D13: the site asserts the JD and nothing more. Never "lawyer", "called to the bar", "licensed", "my law practice", "my litigation practice", "my clients", "acts for", "represents". Implication counts as much as assertion.

  The approved phrasing is "active litigation exposure" or "involvement in litigation and ADR matters" — never "practice" in that context. Pouya's wording, 2026-08-26. So: Director of Firm Operations at a Toronto litigation and ADR boutique, with active exposure to construction, personal injury, POA, and SABS matters. Accurate, specific, and it claims nothing it should not.

  This framing is interim — see AGENTS.md §12 R1. Raise it with Pouya rather than letting it settle in by default.

• Superlatives. No "leading", "premier", "top-rated", "best". They are unverifiable, they read as insecure, and marketing rules for regulated professions treat them as suspect.

• Outcome language that could be read as a guarantee.

• "Passionate", "dedicated", "committed", "proven track record", "results-driven", "leverage", "synergy", "solutions".

• Hedges that erase the claim. The strategy brief warns specifically against softening the technical claim to "technologically literate" — the claim is engineering practice, so the copy says engineering practice.

• Em-dash-heavy rhythm and tricolon padding. One idea per sentence.

• Second-person sales copy on counsel-facing pages. /for-parties/ is the one page written to "you".

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The core positioning statement

Reused, adapted, across the hero, the About page, and the PDF bio:

The dispute resolution practice of Pouya Lajevardi — a credentialed neutral who is also close to live litigation and a practising machine-learning and infrastructure engineer. Built for commercial, construction, energy, technology, and cross-cultural disputes that turn on facts most neutrals take on faith: the contract, the code, the engineering documents, and the regulatory overlay around them.

Every version of this must survive the §4 check. It does: each element is verified.

Approved headline options

From the content brief; all three sit honestly with the practice.

1. A mediator who reads the contract, the code, and the room. — recommended. The cleanest one-sentence statement of the moat, and rare because it is rare.
2. Engineered for the cases that don't fit a courtroom.
3. Disputes resolved by someone who has been on every side of one. Does not clear §4 as written (flagged 2026-08-26). "Every side" asserts having acted as party, as counsel, and as neutral; §4 verifies the neutral role and active litigation exposure, not the other two. Left in place so the option is not silently re-invented — but it cannot be chosen without a §4 row to choose it from.

The credential row

Three slots, never counts:

Slot	Value	Label
1	Q.Med	ADRIC / ADRIO designation
2	JD + ML	Law and engineering
3	EN · FA	Bilingual practice

Fourth slot where the layout has one: Q.Arb — commenced August 2026. Use that wording, not "in progress": §4 pins it, and the weaker form drifts toward "nearly complete", which §4 Forbidden bars outright.

The substitution principle (AGENTS.md §4): wherever the design wants a "how many", substitute a longer-arc credential. These are all true at launch and stay true; none grows by closing files.

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Per-page copy notes

Home

Hero headline from the approved list. Positioning paragraph above. CTAs: Request a consultation → and How I work. The approach section makes the "two directions at once" argument — law and engineering converging on the same dispute — and keeps the infinity metaphor: disputes are loops; the work is redrawing the loop into a line. First person: "my mark", not "our mark".

About

400–600 words of narrative, then structured credentials. Tell the three tracks as one arc, not three lists: a JD and active litigation exposure; a parallel career in machine learning and infrastructure engineering; a company run alongside both. The arc is the point — the credentialing pathway from Q.Med through Q.Arb to C.Med-Arb is stated openly as in progress. The brief treats that arc as part of the story rather than something to obscure.

Omit any section that would be empty. No "Speaking" heading until there is a talk to list.

Mediation / Arbitration / Med-Arb

Procedural, specific, unembellished. Name the rules. Describe the formats. State what a party should expect to do and when. On /arbitration/, state the Q.Arb position in plain terms — what is available now versus what follows designation.

/med-arb/ addresses the procedural-fairness objection directly: the same neutral who heard a party's confidential caucus later decides the matter. Do not elide it. Explain the consent mechanics and when the process is inappropriate. Meeting the strongest objection is what makes the page worth reading.

Practice areas

Each page: dispute types, why this practice fits, what the process looks like, and the market context that makes the area live. Context comes from the strategy brief §III–IV — Ontario's megaproject pipeline, Bill 40 and grid connection, the 2026 privacy statute, LAT volumes.

Frame as positioning, not as history. "Built to facilitate procurement and subcontract disputes on Ontario's megaproject pipeline" — not "extensive experience resolving". The first is true and forward-looking. The second is neither.

Process

Five steps with real timing. Say what happens if the matter does not settle — counsel want to know the downside shape before they commit a client's day.

Fees

Unblocked — Q4/Q14 answered, D14. Build from the confirmed card in docs/07-fees.md. Plain table, no "starting from" evasions, no "contact for pricing" after promising a rate card.

For parties

The one page in second person. Grade-9 reading level. Short sentences. Says explicitly: the mediator is not your lawyer and cannot give you legal advice; the mediator does not decide who is right. Answers what it costs and what happens if you do not settle.

Insights

1,200–1,800 words, monthly cadence (brief §VIII). Territories from §VII: process explainers · regulatory commentary · industry dispute commentary · anonymised reflections · technical explainers for lawyers · credentialing content.

Every piece links to at least one practice-area page. Anonymised reflections must be genuinely unidentifiable — not merely name-stripped. If a matter could be recognised by the parties to it, it does not run.

Launch article slate (D9)

Drafted by Claude, every word reviewed by Pouya before publication:

1. What the Ontario data-centre build-out means for dispute resolution — technology + construction; the strongest single differentiator piece.
2. When Med-Arb is the right answer, and when it is not — process explainer; feeds /med-arb/; high search intent, thin competition.
3. Bill 40 and grid connection: a dispute-resolution read — regulatory commentary; establishes the energy niche.
4. What a System Impact Assessment actually evaluates — technical explainer for lawyers; the clearest demonstration of the claim the whole brand rests on.
5. Choosing a neutral: what counsel should actually ask — evergreen, useful, and it makes the case for this practice without arguing for it.

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Compliance checklist — before any page ships

• Every factual claim appears in AGENTS.md §4 Verified
• No matter counts, settlement rates, dollar figures, or time-to-award stats
• No testimonials, endorsements, or third-party quotes
• No superlatives and no guarantee language
• No claim or implication of legal licensure anywhere (D13)
• Q.Arb described as commenced August 2026, never as held or nearly complete
• Nothing implies a firm, a team, or offices that do not exist
• Contact page states that an inquiry creates no retainer and no mediator–party relationship
• Any comparative claim is factual and verifiable