Attorney Review Gate

Purpose

Run the final pre-reliance quality gate for draft legal work product. The skill consolidates must-confirm facts, must-confirm law, must-confirm citations, client decision points, ethical/professional-responsibility flags, privilege/confidentiality flags, jurisdiction/deadline flags, and a status of "ready for attorney review" or "not ready for attorney review."

This gate does not approve, certify, or finalize legal work. It organizes the issues a qualified attorney must review before reliance.

Use When

• A high-risk legal output is about to be sent, filed, delivered, or relied upon.
• A draft demand letter, client memo, research summary, risk assessment, contract review, or filing-bound draft needs final attorney-review triage.
• Other quality checks have produced findings that need to be consolidated.
• The user asks whether a draft is ready for attorney review.

Required Inputs

• The complete final draft to gate.
• Source materials, citations, assumptions, and prior quality-check reports if available.
• Intended recipient, use, jurisdiction, governing law, posture, and any deadline context.
• Any client decisions, business positions, or attorney instructions already supplied.

If the draft is missing, stop and request it.

Do Not Use When

• The user wants the agent to approve, sign, send, file, or certify the draft.
• The draft has not been prepared yet.
• The user asks for legal advice or final legal judgment.

Legal Safety Rules

• Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice.
• A "ready for attorney review" status means ready to be reviewed by an attorney, not ready for reliance or external use.
• Do not check boxes as if acting for the attorney. List items for attorney confirmation.
• Follow core/source-and-citation-discipline.md; do not invent legal authority, citations, quotations, facts, or deadlines.
• Do not resolve legal conclusions, citations, deadlines, or privilege questions by guessing.
• Preserve confidentiality and privilege.

Workflow

1. Confirm gate scope. Identify draft type, recipient, intended use, jurisdiction, deadlines, and prior quality checks.
2. Collect must-confirm facts. List material facts, source-dependent facts, and facts whose change would alter the output.
3. Collect must-confirm law. List legal rules, standards, thresholds, elements, exceptions, and current-law questions.
4. Collect must-confirm citations. List every authority, quotation, pin cite, and source that must be checked.
5. Collect client decisions. List settlement authority, risk tolerance, business positions, tone choices, waiver decisions, and sign-off items.
6. Identify ethics and professional-responsibility flags. Include legal-advice framing, unauthorized-practice risk, conflicts, candor, fairness, third-party disclosure, and competence/supervision issues.
7. Identify privilege and confidentiality flags. Include sensitive facts, privileged communications, work-product labels, anonymization needs, and external-facing redactions.
8. Identify jurisdiction and deadline flags. Include unknown jurisdiction, governing law, venue, agency, court, response dates, filing dates, notice periods, limitations periods, and effective dates.
9. Assign status. Use:
   • Ready for attorney review if the draft is complete enough for an attorney to review with listed confirmation items.
   • Not ready for attorney review if missing inputs, unsupported authorities, unresolved assumptions, or confidentiality issues prevent meaningful review.
10. State reasons. If not ready, explain exactly what must be provided or corrected.

Output Format

Deliver:

1. Draft Label — "Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice."
2. Gate Status — Ready for attorney review / Not ready for attorney review.
3. Reasons for Status — Short bullet list.
4. Must-Confirm Facts
5. Must-Confirm Law
6. Must-Confirm Citations and Sources
7. Client Decision Points
8. Ethics and Professional-Responsibility Flags
9. Privilege and Confidentiality Flags
10. Jurisdiction and Deadline Flags
11. Attorney Review Checklist

Attorney Verification Checklist

• [ ] All must-confirm facts have been checked against the record or client instructions.
• [ ] All must-confirm law has been researched and confirmed by counsel.
• [ ] All citations, quotations, and pin cites have been independently verified.
• [ ] All client decision points have been resolved or escalated.
• [ ] All ethics and professional-responsibility flags have been reviewed.
• [ ] Privilege and confidentiality treatment is appropriate for the recipient.
• [ ] Jurisdiction, governing law, venue, posture, and deadlines are confirmed.
• [ ] The draft remains marked as draft legal work product for attorney review, not legal advice.

Full raw SKILL.md

---
name: Attorney Review Gate
description: "Use when running a final quality gate before legal draft work product is sent, filed, relied upon, or delivered for attorney review, producing must-confirm facts, law, citations, client decisions, ethics flags, privilege flags, jurisdiction/deadline flags, and a ready-or-not-ready status."
practice_area: legal-methodology
task_type: verification
jurisdictions: []
risk_level: high
requires_attorney_review: true
inputs:
  - "The final draft legal work product to gate"
  - "The source materials, citations, assumptions, and prior quality-check reports"
  - "The intended recipient, use, jurisdiction, and deadline context"
outputs:
  - "Attorney review gate checklist"
  - "Ready for attorney review or not ready for attorney review status"
related_skills:
  - skills/legal-methodology/citation-integrity-check/SKILL.md
  - skills/legal-methodology/assumption-audit/SKILL.md
  - skills/legal-methodology/privilege-confidentiality-check/SKILL.md
tags:
  - legal-methodology
  - attorney-review
  - review-gate
  - quality-control
  - final-check
---

# Attorney Review Gate

## Purpose

Run the final pre-reliance quality gate for draft legal work product. The skill consolidates must-confirm facts, must-confirm law, must-confirm citations, client decision points, ethical/professional-responsibility flags, privilege/confidentiality flags, jurisdiction/deadline flags, and a status of "ready for attorney review" or "not ready for attorney review."

This gate does not approve, certify, or finalize legal work. It organizes the issues a qualified attorney must review before reliance.

## Use When

- A high-risk legal output is about to be sent, filed, delivered, or relied upon.
- A draft demand letter, client memo, research summary, risk assessment, contract review, or filing-bound draft needs final attorney-review triage.
- Other quality checks have produced findings that need to be consolidated.
- The user asks whether a draft is ready for attorney review.

## Required Inputs

- The complete final draft to gate.
- Source materials, citations, assumptions, and prior quality-check reports if available.
- Intended recipient, use, jurisdiction, governing law, posture, and any deadline context.
- Any client decisions, business positions, or attorney instructions already supplied.

If the draft is missing, stop and request it.

## Do Not Use When

- The user wants the agent to approve, sign, send, file, or certify the draft.
- The draft has not been prepared yet.
- The user asks for legal advice or final legal judgment.

## Legal Safety Rules

- Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice.
- A "ready for attorney review" status means ready to be reviewed by an attorney, not ready for reliance or external use.
- Do not check boxes as if acting for the attorney. List items for attorney confirmation.
- Follow `core/source-and-citation-discipline.md`; do not invent legal authority, citations, quotations, facts, or deadlines.
- Do not resolve legal conclusions, citations, deadlines, or privilege questions by guessing.
- Preserve confidentiality and privilege.

## Workflow

1. **Confirm gate scope.** Identify draft type, recipient, intended use, jurisdiction, deadlines, and prior quality checks.
2. **Collect must-confirm facts.** List material facts, source-dependent facts, and facts whose change would alter the output.
3. **Collect must-confirm law.** List legal rules, standards, thresholds, elements, exceptions, and current-law questions.
4. **Collect must-confirm citations.** List every authority, quotation, pin cite, and source that must be checked.
5. **Collect client decisions.** List settlement authority, risk tolerance, business positions, tone choices, waiver decisions, and sign-off items.
6. **Identify ethics and professional-responsibility flags.** Include legal-advice framing, unauthorized-practice risk, conflicts, candor, fairness, third-party disclosure, and competence/supervision issues.
7. **Identify privilege and confidentiality flags.** Include sensitive facts, privileged communications, work-product labels, anonymization needs, and external-facing redactions.
8. **Identify jurisdiction and deadline flags.** Include unknown jurisdiction, governing law, venue, agency, court, response dates, filing dates, notice periods, limitations periods, and effective dates.
9. **Assign status.** Use:
   - **Ready for attorney review** if the draft is complete enough for an attorney to review with listed confirmation items.
   - **Not ready for attorney review** if missing inputs, unsupported authorities, unresolved assumptions, or confidentiality issues prevent meaningful review.
10. **State reasons.** If not ready, explain exactly what must be provided or corrected.

## Output Format

Deliver:

1. **Draft Label** — "Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice."
2. **Gate Status** — Ready for attorney review / Not ready for attorney review.
3. **Reasons for Status** — Short bullet list.
4. **Must-Confirm Facts**
5. **Must-Confirm Law**
6. **Must-Confirm Citations and Sources**
7. **Client Decision Points**
8. **Ethics and Professional-Responsibility Flags**
9. **Privilege and Confidentiality Flags**
10. **Jurisdiction and Deadline Flags**
11. **Attorney Review Checklist**

## Attorney Verification Checklist

- [ ] All must-confirm facts have been checked against the record or client instructions.
- [ ] All must-confirm law has been researched and confirmed by counsel.
- [ ] All citations, quotations, and pin cites have been independently verified.
- [ ] All client decision points have been resolved or escalated.
- [ ] All ethics and professional-responsibility flags have been reviewed.
- [ ] Privilege and confidentiality treatment is appropriate for the recipient.
- [ ] Jurisdiction, governing law, venue, posture, and deadlines are confirmed.
- [ ] The draft remains marked as draft legal work product for attorney review, not legal advice.