Employment Cold-Start Interview

Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with an employment practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate practice-profiles/employment.md. The skill walks through all eight profile fields in sequence, records every answer, and assembles a filled draft of the profile for the practice group's review and approval. It produces draft legal work product for attorney review — not legal advice and not a final configuration.

Use When

• A team is adopting AgentCounsel and needs to configure practice-profiles/employment.md for the first time.
• An employment practice group is being onboarded to the library and no current profile exists.
• The library is being stood up for the first time and the employment area is included in scope.
• A practice group wishes to revisit or rebuild its profile from scratch rather than make incremental updates.

Required Inputs

• A knowledgeable person from the employment practice group — a supervising attorney or an authorized designee — who can answer questions about the group's jurisdiction, positions, escalation rules, and review requirements.
• Any existing playbooks, templates, source-of-truth documents, or standard-form documents the group already uses, so they can be referenced or cited in the profile.

Do Not Use When

• The group is actively working a live employment matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
• A practice-profiles/employment.md already exists and is current. In that case this is a refresh, not a cold start — though the skill may still be used to rebuild the profile deliberately.
• No authorized person is available to answer. Do not complete the interview with guessed or inferred answers; record all gaps as [CONFIRM: ...] placeholders.
• The purpose is to handle a specific employment matter (use the appropriate matter-level skill for that task).

Legal Safety Rules

• Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice.
• Never guess or infer an answer to any interview question. If the interviewee cannot answer a question, record [CONFIRM: answer required from practice group] and move on.
• The filled profile is a draft. It must be reviewed and explicitly approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it governs any AgentCounsel work product.
• Do not invent standard positions, clause preferences, escalation thresholds, or review rules. Record only what the interviewee provides.
• Do not include client-specific facts, client names, matter identifiers, or privileged details in the profile. The profile is a reusable group-level configuration, not a matter record.
• Do not state or imply that any threshold, position, or rule in the profile satisfies a legal requirement under any jurisdiction. Jurisdiction-specific legal obligations are for the attorney to verify.
• Flag every item the interviewee defers or leaves open with a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder so the reviewer can see exactly what is unresolved.

Workflow

Stage 1 — Jurisdictions

Ask the interviewee:

• In which countries, states, or provinces does the group advise on employment matters most frequently?
• Does the group handle matters before federal administrative agencies, state labor boards, or other tribunals — and if so, which?
• Are there jurisdictions where the group operates under special constraints, local-counsel requirements, or sector-specific employment regimes?
• Are remote-work arrangements creating multi-jurisdictional employment relationships the group must account for, and which jurisdictions are most affected?
• Are there jurisdictions the group treats as out of scope entirely, requiring escalation or outside counsel?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: jurisdiction not yet specified].

Stage 2 — Client and Team Context

Ask the interviewee:

• Does the group represent primarily employers, employees, HR / people-operations functions, or a mix? Confirm the default representation posture.
• What types of employment matters does the group handle most frequently — terminations, classifications, policy work, separation agreements, investigations, agency responses, or others?
• How is the team structured — employment partners, associates, HR-law specialists, paralegals, non-attorney professionals whose work must be supervised?
• Are there business units, client categories, or counterparty categories (executives, regulated employees, unionized workforces) that require special handling or additional sign-off?
• How does the group coordinate with external HR advisors, benefits counsel, or specialist immigration / executive-compensation counsel?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: client/team context not yet specified].

Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds

Ask the interviewee:

• What classification scenarios — independent contractor vs. employee, exempt vs. non-exempt, statutory employee, dual-status worker — automatically require attorney review?
• Which protected-characteristic or protected-activity scenarios require mandatory escalation, regardless of matter size?
• Is there a headcount or payroll threshold for WARN-Act-type analysis, and a named contact for that escalation?
• Which restrictive-covenant questions are treated as requiring outside counsel or specialist review?
• What is the escalation path when an agency charge, complaint, or formal inquiry is filed against a client?
• Who is the designated escalation contact for escalated employment matters, and what is the expected turnaround?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: escalation threshold not yet specified].

Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style

Ask the interviewee:

• Should employment work product default to HR-facing summaries in plain language, attorney-facing legal memos, or both layered?
• What format does the group use for separation-agreement and severance-agreement review — issue table, redline, or narrative memo?
• Are there house style rules for risk ratings, action items, or open questions in employment work product?
• Does the group produce employee-handbook sections or policy updates, and if so, in what format?
• Are there particular deliverable types — investigation memos, classification analyses, WARN-style projections — for which the group has mandatory format requirements?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: output style preference not yet specified].

Stage 5 — Source-of-Truth Documents

Ask the interviewee:

• What is the group's authoritative source of truth for the current employee handbook, offer-letter templates, and separation-agreement templates? Where are they stored?
• Is there an authoritative classification-review checklist for independent-contractor and exempt-status engagements?
• What document governs the group's internal HR-investigation protocol?
• Does the group maintain a wage-and-hour compliance checklist, and is it tied to specific jurisdictions?
• Is there a non-compete / restrictive-covenant playbook, and is any of it under revision or pending update?

Record answers and document names. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: source document not yet identified].

Stage 6 — Standard Positions and Playbooks

Ask the interviewee:

• Is at-will employment the default in every jurisdiction where the group works, or are there exceptions?
• What is the group's default position on worker classification when a new engagement type arises — and what triggers a classification escalation?
• What is the group's default position on arbitration agreements in offer letters and handbooks?
• What review and revocation periods does the group treat as standard in separation agreements, and how are these handled across jurisdictions?
• What is the group's default posture on non-competes — narrow and time-limited, broader, or never-without-attorney-sign-off — and how does that vary by jurisdiction?
• What is the group's default investigation-documentation standard?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: standard position not yet specified].

Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements

Ask the interviewee:

• At what stage of an employment matter does attorney review of work product become mandatory — intake, before any external communication, before any termination decision, before any agency response, or at other defined stages?
• Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of matter size — for example, separation agreements, agency responses, or any matter touching a protected characteristic?
• What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising attorney, practice group lead, general counsel?
• What is the expected turnaround for standard employment review, and how are urgent reviews (imminent termination, agency deadline) handled?
• Is there a formal sign-off step — required signature, approval stamp, or logged confirmation — before a separation agreement is sent or a policy is distributed?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: review requirement not yet specified].

Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions

Ask the interviewee:

• Are there facts, postures, or legal conclusions that agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — for example, that employment is at-will, that a worker is properly classified, that a release covers all claims, or that a handbook is current?
• Are there protected-activity / retaliation-risk scenarios where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently?
• Are there matter types or workforce populations (executives, unionized employees, regulated employees) where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement?
• Are there prior incidents, agency findings, or lessons learned that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on employment matters?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: prohibited assumption not yet specified].

Stage 9 — Assemble the Draft Profile

Compile all answers into a filled draft of practice-profiles/employment.md, populating each of the eight profile sections. For every item that was not answered, insert a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder with enough context for the reviewer to understand what needs to be supplied. Append a list of all open placeholders so the reviewing attorney can see at a glance what remains unresolved.

Output Format

Deliver:

1. Filled draft of practice-profiles/employment.md — all eight sections populated with answers from the interview. Every unanswered item is a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder.
2. Open-items list — an explicit enumeration of every placeholder inserted, with the stage and question it corresponds to, so the reviewing attorney can resolve them efficiently.

Label the entire output: Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice. This profile draft must be reviewed and approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it is relied upon.

Attorney Verification Checklist

• [ ] All eight profile sections have been reviewed by a supervising attorney or authorized practice-group representative.
• [ ] At-will posture and any jurisdiction-specific exceptions are accurately recorded [verify jurisdiction].
• [ ] Worker-classification defaults are consistent with the group's current escalation posture and reflect any pending regulatory changes [Verify current law].
• [ ] Non-compete and restrictive-covenant positions reflect the current enforceability landscape across in-scope jurisdictions [verify jurisdiction].
• [ ] Separation-agreement review-period and revocation-period defaults are consistent with applicable statutory requirements [verify jurisdiction] and all related deadlines are marked [deadline verification required].
• [ ] Investigation-documentation standard and retaliation-risk assessment posture reflect the group's current considered practice, not a provisional one.
• [ ] No client-specific facts, matter identifiers, or privileged details appear in the profile.
• [ ] All [CONFIRM: ...] placeholders have been resolved or explicitly accepted as pending.
• [ ] The approved profile has been saved to practice-profiles/employment.md and its effective date recorded.
• [ ] A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.

Full raw SKILL.md

---
name: Employment Cold-Start Interview
description: "Use when an employment practice group is adopting AgentCounsel and needs to configure its practice profile by answering a structured interview covering jurisdictions, client context, escalation thresholds, output preferences, source documents, standard positions, review requirements, and prohibited assumptions."
practice_area: setup
task_type: interview
jurisdictions: []
risk_level: low
requires_attorney_review: true
inputs:
  - "Access to an employment attorney or authorized designee"
  - "The practice group's jurisdictions and client context"
  - "Standard positions, escalation thresholds, and review requirements"
outputs:
  - "Filled employment practice profile draft for attorney review"
related_skills:
  - skills/employment/termination-risk/SKILL.md
  - skills/employment/worker-classification/SKILL.md
  - skills/employment/employee-policy-review/SKILL.md
tags:
  - setup
  - cold-start
  - practice-profile
  - configuration
  - employment
---

# Employment Cold-Start Interview

## Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with an employment practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate `practice-profiles/employment.md`. The skill walks through all eight profile fields in sequence, records every answer, and assembles a filled draft of the profile for the practice group's review and approval. It produces draft legal work product for attorney review — not legal advice and not a final configuration.

## Use When

- A team is adopting AgentCounsel and needs to configure `practice-profiles/employment.md` for the first time.
- An employment practice group is being onboarded to the library and no current profile exists.
- The library is being stood up for the first time and the employment area is included in scope.
- A practice group wishes to revisit or rebuild its profile from scratch rather than make incremental updates.

## Required Inputs

- A knowledgeable person from the employment practice group — a supervising attorney or an authorized designee — who can answer questions about the group's jurisdiction, positions, escalation rules, and review requirements.
- Any existing playbooks, templates, source-of-truth documents, or standard-form documents the group already uses, so they can be referenced or cited in the profile.

## Do Not Use When

- The group is actively working a live employment matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
- A `practice-profiles/employment.md` already exists and is current. In that case this is a refresh, not a cold start — though the skill may still be used to rebuild the profile deliberately.
- No authorized person is available to answer. Do not complete the interview with guessed or inferred answers; record all gaps as `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholders.
- The purpose is to handle a specific employment matter (use the appropriate matter-level skill for that task).

## Legal Safety Rules

- Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice.
- Never guess or infer an answer to any interview question. If the interviewee cannot answer a question, record `[CONFIRM: answer required from practice group]` and move on.
- The filled profile is a draft. It must be reviewed and explicitly approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it governs any AgentCounsel work product.
- Do not invent standard positions, clause preferences, escalation thresholds, or review rules. Record only what the interviewee provides.
- Do not include client-specific facts, client names, matter identifiers, or privileged details in the profile. The profile is a reusable group-level configuration, not a matter record.
- Do not state or imply that any threshold, position, or rule in the profile satisfies a legal requirement under any jurisdiction. Jurisdiction-specific legal obligations are for the attorney to verify.
- Flag every item the interviewee defers or leaves open with a visible `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholder so the reviewer can see exactly what is unresolved.

## Workflow

**Stage 1 — Jurisdictions**

Ask the interviewee:
- In which countries, states, or provinces does the group advise on employment matters most frequently?
- Does the group handle matters before federal administrative agencies, state labor boards, or other tribunals — and if so, which?
- Are there jurisdictions where the group operates under special constraints, local-counsel requirements, or sector-specific employment regimes?
- Are remote-work arrangements creating multi-jurisdictional employment relationships the group must account for, and which jurisdictions are most affected?
- Are there jurisdictions the group treats as out of scope entirely, requiring escalation or outside counsel?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: jurisdiction not yet specified]`.

**Stage 2 — Client and Team Context**

Ask the interviewee:
- Does the group represent primarily employers, employees, HR / people-operations functions, or a mix? Confirm the default representation posture.
- What types of employment matters does the group handle most frequently — terminations, classifications, policy work, separation agreements, investigations, agency responses, or others?
- How is the team structured — employment partners, associates, HR-law specialists, paralegals, non-attorney professionals whose work must be supervised?
- Are there business units, client categories, or counterparty categories (executives, regulated employees, unionized workforces) that require special handling or additional sign-off?
- How does the group coordinate with external HR advisors, benefits counsel, or specialist immigration / executive-compensation counsel?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: client/team context not yet specified]`.

**Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds**

Ask the interviewee:
- What classification scenarios — independent contractor vs. employee, exempt vs. non-exempt, statutory employee, dual-status worker — automatically require attorney review?
- Which protected-characteristic or protected-activity scenarios require mandatory escalation, regardless of matter size?
- Is there a headcount or payroll threshold for WARN-Act-type analysis, and a named contact for that escalation?
- Which restrictive-covenant questions are treated as requiring outside counsel or specialist review?
- What is the escalation path when an agency charge, complaint, or formal inquiry is filed against a client?
- Who is the designated escalation contact for escalated employment matters, and what is the expected turnaround?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: escalation threshold not yet specified]`.

**Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style**

Ask the interviewee:
- Should employment work product default to HR-facing summaries in plain language, attorney-facing legal memos, or both layered?
- What format does the group use for separation-agreement and severance-agreement review — issue table, redline, or narrative memo?
- Are there house style rules for risk ratings, action items, or open questions in employment work product?
- Does the group produce employee-handbook sections or policy updates, and if so, in what format?
- Are there particular deliverable types — investigation memos, classification analyses, WARN-style projections — for which the group has mandatory format requirements?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: output style preference not yet specified]`.

**Stage 5 — Source-of-Truth Documents**

Ask the interviewee:
- What is the group's authoritative source of truth for the current employee handbook, offer-letter templates, and separation-agreement templates? Where are they stored?
- Is there an authoritative classification-review checklist for independent-contractor and exempt-status engagements?
- What document governs the group's internal HR-investigation protocol?
- Does the group maintain a wage-and-hour compliance checklist, and is it tied to specific jurisdictions?
- Is there a non-compete / restrictive-covenant playbook, and is any of it under revision or pending update?

Record answers and document names. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: source document not yet identified]`.

**Stage 6 — Standard Positions and Playbooks**

Ask the interviewee:
- Is at-will employment the default in every jurisdiction where the group works, or are there exceptions?
- What is the group's default position on worker classification when a new engagement type arises — and what triggers a classification escalation?
- What is the group's default position on arbitration agreements in offer letters and handbooks?
- What review and revocation periods does the group treat as standard in separation agreements, and how are these handled across jurisdictions?
- What is the group's default posture on non-competes — narrow and time-limited, broader, or never-without-attorney-sign-off — and how does that vary by jurisdiction?
- What is the group's default investigation-documentation standard?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: standard position not yet specified]`.

**Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements**

Ask the interviewee:
- At what stage of an employment matter does attorney review of work product become mandatory — intake, before any external communication, before any termination decision, before any agency response, or at other defined stages?
- Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of matter size — for example, separation agreements, agency responses, or any matter touching a protected characteristic?
- What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising attorney, practice group lead, general counsel?
- What is the expected turnaround for standard employment review, and how are urgent reviews (imminent termination, agency deadline) handled?
- Is there a formal sign-off step — required signature, approval stamp, or logged confirmation — before a separation agreement is sent or a policy is distributed?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: review requirement not yet specified]`.

**Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions**

Ask the interviewee:
- Are there facts, postures, or legal conclusions that agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — for example, that employment is at-will, that a worker is properly classified, that a release covers all claims, or that a handbook is current?
- Are there protected-activity / retaliation-risk scenarios where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently?
- Are there matter types or workforce populations (executives, unionized employees, regulated employees) where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement?
- Are there prior incidents, agency findings, or lessons learned that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on employment matters?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: prohibited assumption not yet specified]`.

**Stage 9 — Assemble the Draft Profile**

Compile all answers into a filled draft of `practice-profiles/employment.md`, populating each of the eight profile sections. For every item that was not answered, insert a visible `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholder with enough context for the reviewer to understand what needs to be supplied. Append a list of all open placeholders so the reviewing attorney can see at a glance what remains unresolved.

## Output Format

Deliver:

1. **Filled draft of `practice-profiles/employment.md`** — all eight sections populated with answers from the interview. Every unanswered item is a visible `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholder.
2. **Open-items list** — an explicit enumeration of every placeholder inserted, with the stage and question it corresponds to, so the reviewing attorney can resolve them efficiently.

Label the entire output: **Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice. This profile draft must be reviewed and approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it is relied upon.**

## Attorney Verification Checklist

- [ ] All eight profile sections have been reviewed by a supervising attorney or authorized practice-group representative.
- [ ] At-will posture and any jurisdiction-specific exceptions are accurately recorded `[verify jurisdiction]`.
- [ ] Worker-classification defaults are consistent with the group's current escalation posture and reflect any pending regulatory changes `[Verify current law]`.
- [ ] Non-compete and restrictive-covenant positions reflect the current enforceability landscape across in-scope jurisdictions `[verify jurisdiction]`.
- [ ] Separation-agreement review-period and revocation-period defaults are consistent with applicable statutory requirements `[verify jurisdiction]` and all related deadlines are marked `[deadline verification required]`.
- [ ] Investigation-documentation standard and retaliation-risk assessment posture reflect the group's current considered practice, not a provisional one.
- [ ] No client-specific facts, matter identifiers, or privileged details appear in the profile.
- [ ] All `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholders have been resolved or explicitly accepted as pending.
- [ ] The approved profile has been saved to `practice-profiles/employment.md` and its effective date recorded.
- [ ] A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.