draft

/draft

1. Load ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/legal-clinic/CLAUDE.md → practice-area templates, jurisdiction, local rules, supervision style.
2. Use the workflow below.
3. Match doc type to template. Gather facts from case notes — flag missing, never guess.
4. Apply jurisdiction formatting. Draft with [FACT NEEDED], [VERIFY], [UNCERTAIN] flags inline.
5. Output with prominent AI-assisted label, student review checklist, supervision routing.

/legal-clinic:draft eviction-answer

/legal-clinic:draft asylum-declaration

Draft: First-Draft Document Generation

Purpose

Students spend enormous time on first drafts of documents where the educational value is in the analysis and strategy, not in formatting a caption or writing "Dear Judge." This skill produces the first draft from case notes and practice-area templates so the student's time goes to the thinking.

Every draft is explicitly a starting point. Not final work product. The student analyzes, revises, and the professor reviews before anything goes anywhere.

Load context

~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/legal-clinic/CLAUDE.md → practice areas, practice-area templates, jurisdiction (state + local court + any local rules ingested), supervision style.

Case notes or intake summary for the facts.

Pedagogy check

Read the supervisor guide for this practice area at ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/legal-clinic/guides/<practice-area>.md. Check the pedagogy_posture setting:

• guide (default): Produce the structure and the checklist. Ask the student to draft each section. Give feedback on their draft (register, reading level, required elements, what they missed). Offer to fill a section only when the student has tried once.
• assist: Produce the work product. Flag items for student review. The student edits and learns by reviewing.
• teach: Don't produce the work product. Ask the student to draft it. Give feedback. Ask leading questions when they're stuck. Only show a model paragraph after two attempts, and only the section they're stuck on. Track what they got right and wrong so the supervisor can see progress.

If no guide exists, use guide. If the guide exists but doesn't set a posture, use guide.

Whatever the posture, the output always includes: "Pedagogy mode: [assist/guide/teach] — set by your supervisor's guide. This means I [description of what the student did vs what the skill did]."

Jurisdiction assumption. The draft assumes the state, court, and local rules set in CLAUDE.md. Caption format, service requirements, page limits, filing windows, and substantive rules vary materially across jurisdictions and even between courts in the same state. If the matter is in a different court or a different state, confirm with your supervisor before relying on any format, deadline, or argument in the draft.

Workflow

Step 1: Which document?

Match the request to the clinic's template set (from ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/legal-clinic/CLAUDE.md). Common set by practice area:

If the requested document isn't in the template set: "The clinic's templates don't include [X]. I can attempt a draft from general principles, but flag this heavily — it hasn't been tuned for your practice area or jurisdiction. Better to ask [Professor] if there's an existing template."

Step 2: Gather the facts

Read the intake summary or case notes. For each fact the document needs: do we have it?

Missing required facts → don't guess. Mark them: [FACT NEEDED: client's entry date — get from I-94 or ask client].

Step 3: Apply jurisdiction

Per ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/legal-clinic/CLAUDE.md jurisdiction:

• Caption format: state and local court rules. If local rules were ingested at cold-start, use them. If not, use state default and flag: [VERIFY CAPTION: local rules not loaded — confirm format against [Court]'s current rules]
• Service requirements: who gets served, how, by when per the court's rules
• Local quirks: page limits, font requirements, standing orders. Apply what's ingested; flag what isn't.

Step 4: Draft

Use the practice-area template. Fill what can be filled from facts. Leave placeholders explicit — never fill with plausible-sounding invention.

Everywhere the draft makes a legal assertion: that assertion is a hypothesis the student verifies, not a conclusion the draft guarantees. Mark accordingly.

Step 5: Flag uncertainty

Three kinds of flags, in-line:

• [FACT NEEDED: ...] — the document needs a fact the case notes don't have
• [VERIFY: ...] — a legal or factual assertion that needs checking before this is filed
• [UNCERTAIN: ...] — the skill is genuinely unsure and says so rather than guessing

Step 6: Supervision routing

Filing a document with a court or agency is a consequential action. The gate is the supervision workflow in ## Supervision style in ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/legal-clinic/CLAUDE.md, reinforced by the Part 0 role check that confirms a licensed supervising attorney owns the clinic setup. Court filings always route through supervision before filing, regardless of the supervision-style choice.

Per ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/legal-clinic/CLAUDE.md supervision style:

• Formal queue: draft goes to queue, student sees "queued for [Professor]"
• Configurable flags: if this document type is a flag trigger (court filings usually are), output includes "CHECK WITH [PROFESSOR] BEFORE FILING"
• Lighter-touch: standard safeguard label, no additional gate — but court filings still go to the professor before filing per the clinic's existing supervision structure

Output

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What this skill does NOT do

• Produce final work product. First draft only. Student revises, professor reviews.
• Guess at missing facts. Flags them for the student to get.
• Decide the legal theory. Uses the common approach; the student decides if it's the right one for this case.
• Replace jurisdiction-specific research. Applies ingested local rules; flags where rules weren't ingested or might have changed.