The phrase "establishing intent" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to indicate the goal or objective that is setting the tone for a particular situation or action. For example, "The team came up with a plan to establish intent for the project."
"This could very well lead to investors' being able to establish intent to defraud or, at a minimum, recklessness, on the part of analysts and a brokerage firm.
Without appearing to dictate means, Mr Brown needs to establish intent and momentum early on in order to overcome the inevitable resistance he will meet later.
At best, co-parenting agreements serve as a way to establish intent, which state courts can choose to factor into their decisions — or not.
The report found 16 cases of possible deliberate and inappropriate data entry, but the reviewers could not firmly establish intent to deliberately falsify figures.
Aides freely complained that much of the evidence of the arms threat assembled by the intelligence agencies was circumstantial, that the argument was not compelling and that the document failed to establish intent as well as capability.
Subsequent investigative steps undertaken in order to establish intent were not successful.
These criteria support the established design intent and should become part of the Owner's Project Requirements document.
Establishing hostile intent is harder.
He stresses, for instance, the way Baker and his allies trashed hand recounts, misrepresenting the fact that the Texas law Gov. George W. Bush signed allowed all the things Baker was attacking in Florida -- establishing the intent of the voter from partial detachment of a chad, from light visible through a chad or from indentation (the notorious "dimpling") of a chad.
