When a visual exhibit helps a Kutaisi claims committee — and when it does not

Giorgi’s rule in the reporting room is unkind and useful: if a plate needs a paragraph, redraw or drop it. Claims committees in Kutaisi meet in rooms with bad projectors and good interruptions. A timeline with four labelled clusters survives that. A heat map of “anomaly density” does not, because someone will ask what the colour means and the meeting will leave the file.

Exhibits that help tend to be comparisons the eye can do without a lecture: the same workshop invoice numbering leaping; amounts hugging a round threshold; three IBAN changes stacked inside a short window. Exhibits that fail tend to be maps of Georgia with dots for every claim. Geography is rarely the fact in a staged-claim file. Dates and counterparties are.

We caption in English unless you ask for Georgian captions as well. Mixed captions on one plate cause people to read only the language they like. If both languages are required, we issue two plates, not a bilingual crush.

A plate is not evidence by itself. The case evidence pack exists for the moment an advocate needs row ranges. Do not ask the committee plate to do that job; you will get a pretty picture that cannot be cited.