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PROOF Series № 1 · Pilot plan

Pilot study plan

An optional small-scale validation run before full data collection.

Status

Optional pilot, planned for May–June 2026 to validate instrumentation before the full study. Pilot findings, if it runs, are reported separately and do not replace the pre-registered main study.

Before committing to 60 days of collection across 200 firms, an optional pilot validates that the instrumentation works: that prompts return codeable answers, that citation capture is reliable, and that the coding rubric is applied consistently.

Scope

Roughly 20 firms, 7 days, a single practice area — enough to stress-test the pipeline without consuming the main study's collection window.

What the pilot validates

The pilot is a methods check across four dimensions:

  • Prompt-to-answer capture across all four engines is reliable and reproducible.
  • The citation-coding step yields consistent results between coders.
  • The compliance rubric distinguishes firms as intended.
  • Day-to-day engine variability is within a workable range for the 60-day design.

Relationship to the main study

The pilot is a methods check, not a test of the hypothesis. It cannot confirm or refute the main hypothesis, and any pilot signal is explicitly not reported as evidence for it. If the pilot surfaces instrumentation problems, the methodology is revised, and the revision is versioned and disclosed before the main collection begins.

Full document

The full pilot protocol is available to peer reviewers on request at info@legaltorch.ai.

Other documents in this series

Pre-registration →Compliance coding rubric →

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