Litigation Cold-Start Interview

Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with a litigation practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate practice-profiles/litigation.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/litigation.md for the first time.
• A litigation 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 litigation 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 litigation practice group — a supervising attorney or an authorized designee — who can answer questions about the group's forums, conflicts process, hold triggers, settlement authority, and review requirements.
• Any existing litigation playbooks, hold-notice templates, settlement-authority matrices, or standard procedure 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 litigation matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
• A practice-profiles/litigation.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 intake, triage, or work a specific dispute or proceeding (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, settlement-authority figures, conflicts-process steps, or hold-trigger criteria. Record only what the interviewee provides.
• Do not include client-specific facts, client names, matter identifiers, case numbers, 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, trigger, or rule in the profile satisfies a procedural or ethical requirement under any jurisdiction. Jurisdiction-specific legal obligations are for the attorney to verify.
• Do not assert or imply any deadline. All procedural deadlines and limitations periods are attorney-verified items outside the scope of this profile.
• 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 federal, state, provincial, or foreign courts and tribunals does the group primarily practice?
• Does the group appear before arbitral bodies, administrative agencies, or regulatory forums? If so, which categories?
• Are there jurisdictions or forums that the group treats as out of scope, requiring escalation or outside counsel?
• Are there jurisdictions where local counsel is always required, and if so, under what circumstances is the group's internal team still involved?
• Does the group have jurisdiction-specific procedural guides or local-rules summaries it relies on?

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

Stage 2 — Client and Team Context

Ask the interviewee:

• Who are the primary clients of the litigation group — internal business units, external clients, or both?
• What types of matters does the group handle most frequently — commercial disputes, employment litigation, regulatory proceedings, product liability, intellectual property disputes, or other types?
• How is the team structured — are matters handled by individual attorneys, teams, or in a hybrid model?
• Are there matter types or client categories that require special handling, coordination with other practice groups, or involvement of insurance or indemnitors?
• Does the group use a matter-management or docket system, and if so, what is it?

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

Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds

Ask the interviewee:

• What claimed-damages or exposure threshold triggers mandatory escalation to senior litigation counsel, general counsel, or the client's risk function?
• Are there matter types — such as class actions, government investigations, regulatory enforcement, or matters involving reputational risk — that always require escalation regardless of claimed amount?
• At what point in a matter's life cycle does the group's escalation process activate — on receipt of a demand, on filing of a complaint, on service, or at another trigger?
• Who is the designated escalation contact for matters that exceed these thresholds, and what is the expected response time?
• Does the group maintain a written escalation matrix or decision tree? If so, what is it called and where is it stored?

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

Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style

Ask the interviewee:

• Should litigation work product be delivered as a narrative memo, a structured chronology, a bullet-point summary, a table of issues, or another format?
• What level of detail does the practice group expect — executive summary only, full issue-by-issue analysis, or both?
• Are there house style rules for how risk ratings, action items, or open questions should be labeled or formatted?
• Should drafts include a separate assumptions section and a separate verification-items section, or are those integrated into the body?
• Are there particular deliverable types — litigation hold notices, intake summaries, chronologies — 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 documents constitute the group's authoritative source of truth for litigation procedures and standards — for example, a litigation manual, a playbook, an internal procedures guide, or a matter-management policy?
• Where are those documents stored, and how should an agent reference them in work product?
• Are any of those documents currently under revision or not yet finalized? If so, which version governs until a new one is approved?
• Is there a formal process for updating or approving changes to the source documents?
• Are there external procedural sources — court standing orders, local rules compilations, or approved forms — that the group treats as authoritative?

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 standard conflicts-check process — who runs it, at what stage, using what system, and who clears it?
• What are the group's litigation-hold trigger criteria — what events or thresholds require a hold notice to issue, and to whom?
• What are the group's settlement-authority thresholds — who may authorize settlement at each amount tier, and does a written settlement-authority matrix exist?
• What is the group's default position on reporting lines for active litigation — who in the client organization is kept informed, at what frequency, and in what format?
• Does the group have a preferred approach to mediation, arbitration, or other alternative dispute-resolution processes? If so, what is it?
• Does the group maintain a formal playbook document that captures these positions? If so, what is it called and where is it stored?

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

Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements

Ask the interviewee:

• At what stage of a matter does attorney review of work product become mandatory — initial intake, before any external communication, before any filing, or at other defined stages?
• Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of matter stage — for example, litigation hold notices, tolling agreement drafts, or settlement term sheets?
• What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising attorney, practice group lead, or general counsel?
• What is the expected turnaround time for attorney review of standard work product, and how are urgent or deadline-driven reviews handled?
• Is there a formal sign-off step — for example, a required approval notation or logged confirmation — before work product is sent externally?

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

Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions

Ask the interviewee:

• Are there facts, postures, or procedural states that agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — for example, that service has been completed, that a hold is already in place, or that a prior conflicts check remains current?
• Are there litigation-specific risks — such as waiver, spoliation, or privilege — where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently?
• Are there matter types or counterparty categories where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement?
• Are there prior incidents or lessons learned that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on litigation 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/litigation.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/litigation.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.
• [ ] Jurisdictions and forums listed are accurate and complete for the group's current practice.
• [ ] Conflicts-check process is correctly described and consistent with the group's current procedures and applicable professional-conduct obligations [verify jurisdiction].
• [ ] Litigation-hold trigger criteria are accurate and consistent with the group's current preservation obligations [verify jurisdiction].
• [ ] Settlement-authority thresholds match the group's current authority matrix and client engagement terms.
• [ ] Escalation thresholds and reporting lines reflect current organizational structure and client requirements.
• [ ] Source-of-truth documents listed are finalized and in effect; any documents under revision are flagged.
• [ ] Attorney review requirements match the group's current supervision model and any applicable professional-conduct rules [verify jurisdiction].
• [ ] Prohibited assumptions are accurate and do not inadvertently exclude items that should be permitted.
• [ ] No client-specific facts, matter identifiers, case numbers, 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/litigation.md and its effective date recorded.
• [ ] A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.

Full raw SKILL.md

---
name: Litigation Cold-Start Interview
description: "Use when a litigation 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 litigation attorney or authorized designee"
  - "The practice group's jurisdictions and client context"
  - "Standard positions, escalation thresholds, and review requirements"
outputs:
  - "Filled litigation practice profile draft for attorney review"
related_skills:
  - skills/litigation/matter-intake/SKILL.md
  - skills/litigation/litigation-chronology/SKILL.md
tags:
  - setup
  - cold-start
  - practice-profile
  - configuration
  - litigation
---

# Litigation Cold-Start Interview

## Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with a litigation practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate `practice-profiles/litigation.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/litigation.md` for the first time.
- A litigation 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 litigation 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 litigation practice group — a supervising attorney or an authorized designee — who can answer questions about the group's forums, conflicts process, hold triggers, settlement authority, and review requirements.
- Any existing litigation playbooks, hold-notice templates, settlement-authority matrices, or standard procedure 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 litigation matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
- A `practice-profiles/litigation.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 intake, triage, or work a specific dispute or proceeding (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, settlement-authority figures, conflicts-process steps, or hold-trigger criteria. Record only what the interviewee provides.
- Do not include client-specific facts, client names, matter identifiers, case numbers, 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, trigger, or rule in the profile satisfies a procedural or ethical requirement under any jurisdiction. Jurisdiction-specific legal obligations are for the attorney to verify.
- Do not assert or imply any deadline. All procedural deadlines and limitations periods are attorney-verified items outside the scope of this profile.
- 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 federal, state, provincial, or foreign courts and tribunals does the group primarily practice?
- Does the group appear before arbitral bodies, administrative agencies, or regulatory forums? If so, which categories?
- Are there jurisdictions or forums that the group treats as out of scope, requiring escalation or outside counsel?
- Are there jurisdictions where local counsel is always required, and if so, under what circumstances is the group's internal team still involved?
- Does the group have jurisdiction-specific procedural guides or local-rules summaries it relies on?

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

**Stage 2 — Client and Team Context**

Ask the interviewee:
- Who are the primary clients of the litigation group — internal business units, external clients, or both?
- What types of matters does the group handle most frequently — commercial disputes, employment litigation, regulatory proceedings, product liability, intellectual property disputes, or other types?
- How is the team structured — are matters handled by individual attorneys, teams, or in a hybrid model?
- Are there matter types or client categories that require special handling, coordination with other practice groups, or involvement of insurance or indemnitors?
- Does the group use a matter-management or docket system, and if so, what is it?

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

**Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds**

Ask the interviewee:
- What claimed-damages or exposure threshold triggers mandatory escalation to senior litigation counsel, general counsel, or the client's risk function?
- Are there matter types — such as class actions, government investigations, regulatory enforcement, or matters involving reputational risk — that always require escalation regardless of claimed amount?
- At what point in a matter's life cycle does the group's escalation process activate — on receipt of a demand, on filing of a complaint, on service, or at another trigger?
- Who is the designated escalation contact for matters that exceed these thresholds, and what is the expected response time?
- Does the group maintain a written escalation matrix or decision tree? If so, what is it called and where is it stored?

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

**Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style**

Ask the interviewee:
- Should litigation work product be delivered as a narrative memo, a structured chronology, a bullet-point summary, a table of issues, or another format?
- What level of detail does the practice group expect — executive summary only, full issue-by-issue analysis, or both?
- Are there house style rules for how risk ratings, action items, or open questions should be labeled or formatted?
- Should drafts include a separate assumptions section and a separate verification-items section, or are those integrated into the body?
- Are there particular deliverable types — litigation hold notices, intake summaries, chronologies — 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 documents constitute the group's authoritative source of truth for litigation procedures and standards — for example, a litigation manual, a playbook, an internal procedures guide, or a matter-management policy?
- Where are those documents stored, and how should an agent reference them in work product?
- Are any of those documents currently under revision or not yet finalized? If so, which version governs until a new one is approved?
- Is there a formal process for updating or approving changes to the source documents?
- Are there external procedural sources — court standing orders, local rules compilations, or approved forms — that the group treats as authoritative?

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 standard conflicts-check process — who runs it, at what stage, using what system, and who clears it?
- What are the group's litigation-hold trigger criteria — what events or thresholds require a hold notice to issue, and to whom?
- What are the group's settlement-authority thresholds — who may authorize settlement at each amount tier, and does a written settlement-authority matrix exist?
- What is the group's default position on reporting lines for active litigation — who in the client organization is kept informed, at what frequency, and in what format?
- Does the group have a preferred approach to mediation, arbitration, or other alternative dispute-resolution processes? If so, what is it?
- Does the group maintain a formal playbook document that captures these positions? If so, what is it called and where is it stored?

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

**Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements**

Ask the interviewee:
- At what stage of a matter does attorney review of work product become mandatory — initial intake, before any external communication, before any filing, or at other defined stages?
- Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of matter stage — for example, litigation hold notices, tolling agreement drafts, or settlement term sheets?
- What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising attorney, practice group lead, or general counsel?
- What is the expected turnaround time for attorney review of standard work product, and how are urgent or deadline-driven reviews handled?
- Is there a formal sign-off step — for example, a required approval notation or logged confirmation — before work product is sent externally?

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

**Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions**

Ask the interviewee:
- Are there facts, postures, or procedural states that agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — for example, that service has been completed, that a hold is already in place, or that a prior conflicts check remains current?
- Are there litigation-specific risks — such as waiver, spoliation, or privilege — where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently?
- Are there matter types or counterparty categories where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement?
- Are there prior incidents or lessons learned that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on litigation 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/litigation.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/litigation.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.
- [ ] Jurisdictions and forums listed are accurate and complete for the group's current practice.
- [ ] Conflicts-check process is correctly described and consistent with the group's current procedures and applicable professional-conduct obligations `[verify jurisdiction]`.
- [ ] Litigation-hold trigger criteria are accurate and consistent with the group's current preservation obligations `[verify jurisdiction]`.
- [ ] Settlement-authority thresholds match the group's current authority matrix and client engagement terms.
- [ ] Escalation thresholds and reporting lines reflect current organizational structure and client requirements.
- [ ] Source-of-truth documents listed are finalized and in effect; any documents under revision are flagged.
- [ ] Attorney review requirements match the group's current supervision model and any applicable professional-conduct rules `[verify jurisdiction]`.
- [ ] Prohibited assumptions are accurate and do not inadvertently exclude items that should be permitted.
- [ ] No client-specific facts, matter identifiers, case numbers, 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/litigation.md` and its effective date recorded.
- [ ] A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.