claude-for-legal

# Claude for Legal

Use this skill when the user asks for legal workflow help: contract review, legal triage, policy/regulatory analysis, legal research planning, compliance checklists, litigation support, legal ops trackers, law-student practice, or clinic-style intake/drafting.

Source basis: Anthropic `claude-for-legal` at `anthropics/claude-for-legal` commit `9cecd91b0f26f732d18315afc3c9bb5ff99e0fbb`, Apache-2.0. This OMK skill is a compact adaptation, not a vendored copy of upstream prompts.

## Non-negotiables

- Treat outputs as AI-assisted drafts for qualified attorney review, not legal advice or legal conclusions.
- Do not file, send, sign, threaten, accept, reject, waive rights, or communicate externally without an explicit user gate and attorney-review note.
- Identify jurisdiction, governing law, audience, role of the user, deadline, and source set. If unknown and material, ask; if proceeding, state assumptions.
- For current law, citations, statutes, regulations, court rules, agency guidance, or case law, verify with authoritative/current sources before relying. If not verified, label citations and conclusions as needing verification.
- Never invent citations, docket facts, quotes, party facts, deadlines, or regulatory text.
- Preserve privilege/confidentiality boundaries; avoid putting sensitive facts into external tools unless user has configured and approved them.
- If user is not a lawyer, structure output as an attorney-facing brief with plain-English risk explanations and clear questions for counsel.

## Core workflow

1. **Classify lane**: choose practice area and workflow. Load `references/workflow-catalog.md` when mapping is not obvious.
2. **Intake**: collect only missing material facts: role, jurisdiction, document/source corpus, transaction/matter context, risk appetite, deadline, intended audience, and requested output.
3. **Source preflight**: record what sources were actually checked. Prefer official/primary sources; use legal research connectors/MCPs only if configured. Otherwise browse authoritative sources or mark `[verify]`.
4. **Analyze conservatively**: separate facts, assumptions, legal issues, risk level, source-backed points, open questions, and attorney decisions.
5. **Gate consequential action**: give draft language/checklist/memo, then list what must be reviewed before use.

## Default output skeleton

```md
# AI-assisted legal workflow draft — attorney review required

- Role/audience:
- Jurisdiction/governing law:
- Scope:
- Sources checked:
- Verification gaps:
- Assumptions:

## Executive summary
## Key issues / risk flags
## Analysis
## Draft / checklist / table
## Open questions for counsel
## Pre-use review gate
```

## Risk language

Use cautious labels: `Blocking`, `High`, `Medium`, `Low`, `Information needed`. Explain each label in business/plain-English terms. Avoid saying a position is “legal,” “compliant,” “privileged,” or “safe” unless verified and still framed for attorney judgment.

## Citation rules

- Attach source/provenance to every legal authority or factual extraction from documents.
- Distinguish primary authority, secondary source, model reasoning, and user-provided facts.
- If a citation comes from model knowledge or an unverified web result, tag it `[verify]` and place it in verification gaps.
- Quote only short excerpts needed for analysis; prefer paraphrase and pinpoint citations.

## Practice profile pattern

When a matter will continue across turns, create or update a concise practice/matter profile in the working docs, not in global memory unless explicitly asked. Include: client/company context, role, jurisdiction footprint, escalation contacts, risk posture, house style, source locations, and current open questions. Do not store secrets.