Family Law Cold-Start Interview

Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with a family-law practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate practice-profiles/family-law.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/family-law.md for the first time.
• A family-law 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 family-law 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 family-law 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 family-law matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
• A practice-profiles/family-law.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 family-law 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 states or countries does the group practice family law most frequently?
• Does the group regularly engage with UCCJEA (custody jurisdiction), UIFSA (support jurisdiction), or other interstate / international frameworks?
• Does the group regularly engage with Hague Convention (international child-abduction) matters?
• Are there sector-specific populations the group regularly engages with — military families, families with international ties — that require jurisdiction-specific knowledge?
• Are there jurisdictions or matter types the group treats as out of scope, requiring specialist 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 one party in family-law matters (and which side, if any default), guardians ad litem, or both?
• What types of family-law matters does the group handle most frequently — divorce, custody, support, premarital / postnuptial agreements, adoption, domestic-violence protective orders, paternity?
• How is the team structured — partners, associates, paralegals, victim-advocate or social-work resources?
• How does the group coordinate with custody evaluators, financial neutrals, mental-health professionals, and victim advocates?
• Are there client categories — high-conflict, high-net-worth, families with domestic-violence indicators, blended families — that require special handling?

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

Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds

Ask the interviewee:

• Which matters automatically require escalation — domestic-violence indicator, capacity concern, multi-state custody question, international child-removal risk, child-welfare report, abuse allegation?
• Are there asset-value or income-level thresholds that trigger escalation to senior practitioners?
• When does a safety concern (escalating threats, removal risk, weapon access) require immediate intervention?
• Which engagement types — emergency custody petitions, protective-order responses, child-welfare-agency engagements — require attorney review regardless of stage?
• Who is the designated escalation contact for family-law matters, and what is the expected turnaround? Are there safety-specific escalation pathways?

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

Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style

Ask the interviewee:

• Should family-law work product default to memo format, intake-summary format, chronology format, or settlement-issues format?
• What level of detail does the practice group expect — executive summary, full fact-and-issue analysis, both layered?
• Are there house style rules for safety-flagging, contested-matter flagging, or open-items lists in family-law work product?
• Does the group produce custody-schedule organizers, settlement-issue catalogues, or hearing-preparation outlines in standard formats?
• Are there particular deliverable types — DV safety referrals, custody evaluations, asset-and-debt schedules — 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 client-intake instrument, and where is it stored?
• Is there a chronology-template library, and how is it kept current?
• What document governs the group's jurisdiction-specific custody-rules reference?
• Are there safety-screening protocols and victim-advocate-referral resources the group treats as authoritative?
• Does the group maintain a financial-disclosure framework (asset / debt schedules, income-and-expense forms) tied to applicable court forms?

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

Stage 6 — Standard Positions and Playbooks

Ask the interviewee:

• What is the group's default posture on emergency custody — what facts trigger an emergency petition, what defaults govern the response?
• What is the group's default relocation posture — preferred process, custody-evaluation involvement, when contested?
• What is the group's default abuse-screening protocol — at every intake, situational, or other?
• What is the group's default approach to parenting coordinators, special masters, and other neutral roles?
• What is the group's default approach to settlement vs. litigation framing in initial intake?

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

Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements

Ask the interviewee:

• At what stage does attorney review of family-law work product become mandatory — initial intake, any safety-screening output, any draft pleading, any settlement document?
• Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of stage — any filing, any custody arrangement, any settlement, any domestic-violence-related document?
• What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising attorney, partner?
• What is the expected turnaround for standard family-law review, and how are urgent reviews (emergency custody, protective-order responses) handled? What is the after-hours escalation pathway?
• Is there a formal sign-off step before any filing, settlement, or court-ordered evaluation?

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

Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions

Ask the interviewee:

• Are there facts agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — that custody is uncontested, that no DV is present, that all assets are disclosed, that a parenting plan is enforceable in another state?
• Are there family-law-specific risks — domestic-violence escalation, child-removal risk, capacity concern, undisclosed asset, undue influence — where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently?
• Are there matter types where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement — protective-order matters, DV-indicator matters, child-welfare matters, capacity-concern matters?
• Are there prior incidents — adverse outcomes, court findings, bar inquiries — that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on family-law 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/family-law.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/family-law.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.
• [ ] Safety-screening protocol is accurately recorded and an immediate-escalation pathway is named.
• [ ] Jurisdiction coverage — including UCCJEA, UIFSA, and Hague — is accurately recorded.
• [ ] Emergency-custody and protective-order escalation thresholds are accurately recorded and any associated deadlines are marked [deadline verification required].
• [ ] Confidentiality framework protects victim and child information at the appropriate level.
• [ ] Mandatory-reporter obligations are accurately recorded [verify jurisdiction].
• [ ] 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/family-law.md and its effective date recorded.
• [ ] A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.

Full raw SKILL.md

---
name: Family Law Cold-Start Interview
description: "Use when a family-law 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 a family-law attorney or authorized designee"
  - "The practice group's jurisdictions and client context"
  - "Standard positions, escalation thresholds, and review requirements"
outputs:
  - "Filled family-law practice profile draft for attorney review"
related_skills:
  - skills/family-law/matter-intake/SKILL.md
  - skills/family-law/divorce-intake-organizer/SKILL.md
  - skills/family-law/domestic-violence-safety-referral-checklist/SKILL.md
tags:
  - setup
  - cold-start
  - practice-profile
  - configuration
  - family-law
---

# Family Law Cold-Start Interview

## Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with a family-law practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate `practice-profiles/family-law.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/family-law.md` for the first time.
- A family-law 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 family-law 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 family-law 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 family-law matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
- A `practice-profiles/family-law.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 family-law 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 states or countries does the group practice family law most frequently?
- Does the group regularly engage with UCCJEA (custody jurisdiction), UIFSA (support jurisdiction), or other interstate / international frameworks?
- Does the group regularly engage with Hague Convention (international child-abduction) matters?
- Are there sector-specific populations the group regularly engages with — military families, families with international ties — that require jurisdiction-specific knowledge?
- Are there jurisdictions or matter types the group treats as out of scope, requiring specialist 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 one party in family-law matters (and which side, if any default), guardians ad litem, or both?
- What types of family-law matters does the group handle most frequently — divorce, custody, support, premarital / postnuptial agreements, adoption, domestic-violence protective orders, paternity?
- How is the team structured — partners, associates, paralegals, victim-advocate or social-work resources?
- How does the group coordinate with custody evaluators, financial neutrals, mental-health professionals, and victim advocates?
- Are there client categories — high-conflict, high-net-worth, families with domestic-violence indicators, blended families — that require special handling?

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

**Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds**

Ask the interviewee:
- Which matters automatically require escalation — domestic-violence indicator, capacity concern, multi-state custody question, international child-removal risk, child-welfare report, abuse allegation?
- Are there asset-value or income-level thresholds that trigger escalation to senior practitioners?
- When does a safety concern (escalating threats, removal risk, weapon access) require immediate intervention?
- Which engagement types — emergency custody petitions, protective-order responses, child-welfare-agency engagements — require attorney review regardless of stage?
- Who is the designated escalation contact for family-law matters, and what is the expected turnaround? Are there safety-specific escalation pathways?

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

**Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style**

Ask the interviewee:
- Should family-law work product default to memo format, intake-summary format, chronology format, or settlement-issues format?
- What level of detail does the practice group expect — executive summary, full fact-and-issue analysis, both layered?
- Are there house style rules for safety-flagging, contested-matter flagging, or open-items lists in family-law work product?
- Does the group produce custody-schedule organizers, settlement-issue catalogues, or hearing-preparation outlines in standard formats?
- Are there particular deliverable types — DV safety referrals, custody evaluations, asset-and-debt schedules — 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 client-intake instrument, and where is it stored?
- Is there a chronology-template library, and how is it kept current?
- What document governs the group's jurisdiction-specific custody-rules reference?
- Are there safety-screening protocols and victim-advocate-referral resources the group treats as authoritative?
- Does the group maintain a financial-disclosure framework (asset / debt schedules, income-and-expense forms) tied to applicable court forms?

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

**Stage 6 — Standard Positions and Playbooks**

Ask the interviewee:
- What is the group's default posture on emergency custody — what facts trigger an emergency petition, what defaults govern the response?
- What is the group's default relocation posture — preferred process, custody-evaluation involvement, when contested?
- What is the group's default abuse-screening protocol — at every intake, situational, or other?
- What is the group's default approach to parenting coordinators, special masters, and other neutral roles?
- What is the group's default approach to settlement vs. litigation framing in initial intake?

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

**Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements**

Ask the interviewee:
- At what stage does attorney review of family-law work product become mandatory — initial intake, any safety-screening output, any draft pleading, any settlement document?
- Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of stage — any filing, any custody arrangement, any settlement, any domestic-violence-related document?
- What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising attorney, partner?
- What is the expected turnaround for standard family-law review, and how are urgent reviews (emergency custody, protective-order responses) handled? What is the after-hours escalation pathway?
- Is there a formal sign-off step before any filing, settlement, or court-ordered evaluation?

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

**Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions**

Ask the interviewee:
- Are there facts agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — that custody is uncontested, that no DV is present, that all assets are disclosed, that a parenting plan is enforceable in another state?
- Are there family-law-specific risks — domestic-violence escalation, child-removal risk, capacity concern, undisclosed asset, undue influence — where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently?
- Are there matter types where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement — protective-order matters, DV-indicator matters, child-welfare matters, capacity-concern matters?
- Are there prior incidents — adverse outcomes, court findings, bar inquiries — that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on family-law 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/family-law.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/family-law.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.
- [ ] Safety-screening protocol is accurately recorded and an immediate-escalation pathway is named.
- [ ] Jurisdiction coverage — including UCCJEA, UIFSA, and Hague — is accurately recorded.
- [ ] Emergency-custody and protective-order escalation thresholds are accurately recorded and any associated deadlines are marked `[deadline verification required]`.
- [ ] Confidentiality framework protects victim and child information at the appropriate level.
- [ ] Mandatory-reporter obligations are accurately recorded `[verify jurisdiction]`.
- [ ] 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/family-law.md` and its effective date recorded.
- [ ] A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.