When we pre-registered PROOF Series #1 on May 14, 2026, we committed to a timeline: data collection July 1 through August 29, publication in Q3 2026. We also committed to a rule — any deviation from that timeline of more than 30 days gets disclosed publicly at the time the delay is known. The delay is known. This note is the disclosure.
What happened
Data collection did not start July 1. The reason is unglamorous: the operational build behind the methodology — the data-collection pipeline, the recruitment of two independent coders who are blind to the hypothesis, and the screening pass across roughly 250 candidate firms — took longer to stand up than the May timeline assumed. No data has been collected, no analysis has been run, and nothing about the pre-registered methodology has changed. The hypothesis, sample frame, analysis plan, and falsification criteria are exactly as pre-registered on May 14.
The revised timeline
A 20-firm methodology-validation pilot runs in August. Full data collection runs September 1 – October 30, 2026 — the same 60-day window, shifted. Publication moves from Q3 to Q4 2026, with December as the working target. The pilot's own findings, including any instrument decisions it settles, will be documented as a versioned pre-registration revision before full collection begins.
Why we're telling you
Two things are worth saying plainly. First, the revision costs us a public date, and we said we'd tell you when that happens — this is us telling you. Second, the alternative — quietly sliding the dates, or compressing the study to hit the original quarter — would defeat the purpose of pre-registering at all. A pre-registered study that hides its own slippage isn't pre-registered in any meaningful sense. The point of the discipline is that it binds when it's inconvenient.
The methodology documents, including the original timeline and this revision, remain public on the PROOF Series #1 announcement. The study publishes either way — if the hypothesis holds, and if it doesn't.
New to the topic? Start with the complete guide: GEO for Law Firms — what it is, what it costs, and what the citation data actually shows.
