Four forms of engagement

Ordinem International's work is delivered across four forms of engagement. Each is available across the full scope of our practice areas — the nature of the question, not the subject matter, determines the appropriate form.

Written Advisory Products

The Rapid Briefing

For clients who need precise interpretive clarity before a specific moment — a negotiation session, a ministerial briefing, a funding decision, a board presentation, or a public position that needs to be defensible. It tells you what is actually at stake, who is maneuvering under what constraints, what the realistic outcomes are, and what position is strategically defensible.

Two to four pages · Delivered within five working days

The Strategic Memorandum

For clients who need interpretive precision on a defined legal or policy question. Not a landscape analysis and not a moment-specific briefing — a rigorous written answer to a specific question whose implications are not yet fully understood. What does this provision operationally mean? What precedent does this procedural decision create? How does this instrument interact with existing obligations?

Five to ten pages · Scoped per engagement

The Negotiation and Institutional Assessment

For clients facing a consequential decision about how to engage with, fund, oppose, implement, or litigate a specific instrument, institution, or negotiating process. Three parts: the institutional landscape as it actually operates, the strategic environment including who is maneuvering and under what constraints, and an honest assessment of the client's position, options, and exposure.

Fifteen to thirty pages · Scoped individually following initial consultation

The Position Paper

A written document prepared for a client to submit, present, or defend — in a negotiation, before a Conference of the Parties, at a ministerial meeting, or in a dispute context. Drafted in the client's voice, reflecting the client's interests, grounded in the legal and institutional analysis that makes it defensible. The output is the client's document, not our analysis.

Scoped individually · All formats and lengths

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Project Engagements

On-the-ground. Multi-phase. Outcome-oriented.

Project engagements are defined by how the work is delivered rather than what it contains. Where written advisory products respond to a question or a moment, project work involves sustained presence — direct collaboration with government counterparts, ministries, regional bodies, or institutions over a defined period, with an institutional or policy outcome as the deliverable rather than a document.

Projects we undertake include governance architecture and institutional development, national ocean policy design, blue economy regulatory frameworks, treaty implementation support, and capacity-building programmes for states and regional organisations. Each engagement is scoped individually. The form the work takes follows from what the client needs to build.

Multi-phase · On-the-ground presence · Scoped individually

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III

Ongoing Engagement

The Retainer

Monthly or quarterly access to senior advisory capacity for clients with recurring decisions, who need standing interpretive support across a negotiating cycle, or who want priority access without commissioning discrete engagements each time. Includes defined advisory hours, priority response, and one Rapid Briefing per quarter.

Monthly or quarterly · Reviewed at renewal

Delegation Support

Direct presence alongside a delegation at a Conference of the Parties, an ISA session, an intergovernmental conference, or a negotiating round — providing real-time interpretive support, drafting assistance, and strategic counsel in the room. Event-based and scoped to the specific meeting or session.

Event-based · In-room presence · Scoped per session

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Publication

The Deep Brief

Ordinem International's specialist subscription publication covering international law, law of the sea, ocean governance, and the blue economy. Narrative craft combined with deep institutional analysis — for practitioners, diplomats, academics, and anyone who needs to understand not just what is happening but what it means. Founding access is currently open. Paid membership is available at US$9.99/month or US$99/year.

deepbrief.ordineminternational.com →

Institutional & Group Access

Arrangements may be developed for institutions and teams seeking shared access to The Deep Brief. Enquiries are welcome.

Available on application · Enquire →

Initial consultation

All engagements begin with a thirty-minute initial consultation at no charge. All matters are treated in strict confidence.

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Begin a conversation

The right form follows from the question.

All enquiries are treated with the strictest confidence. We respond to every serious enquiry within 24 hours. Initial consultations are conducted by a senior adviser.

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