employment-offer-drafter

slug	employment-offer-drafter
name	Employment Offer Drafter
description	Draft offer letters and employment agreements from a hiring brief.
version	0.1.0
metadata	{"sources":[{"mode":"port-original","author":"ClaudeCoder","added_in":"0.1.0"}]}

Employment Offer Drafter

Port-original skill. Hand-authored for Legal & Contracts. Owned by contract-drafter.

When to fire

A founder, HR lead, or hiring manager needs an offer letter or employment agreement for a candidate they've decided to hire. Brief usually includes: candidate name, title, comp (base + bonus + equity), start date, work state, and any special terms (sign-on, relocation, remote arrangement).

Inputs

Required: candidate name, role title, base salary, equity (count + vesting + grant type), work state, start date, employment classification (full-time / part-time / contractor). Optional: sign-on bonus, relocation, severance terms, IP-assignment / non-compete preferences, at-will confirmation, benefits summary.

Outputs

A draft offer letter (or full employment agreement when the role / comp warrants it) plus a transmittal note. Sections: title + role, comp + benefits + equity, start date + classification, IP assignment + confidentiality, at-will (where state law allows), governing law + venue, contingencies (background check, I-9, references).

How to draft

1. Pull the work-state's employment-law constraints — note any state-specific items that need attorney verification (CA non-compete enforceability, NY pay transparency, IL BIPA, MA earned-sick-time, WA pay-transparency, etc.).
2. Translate equity into grant-document references (option grant ref, RSU grant ref, vesting schedule), with the cap-table-maintainer named as the next downstream owner.
3. Insert the comp + start-date + classification specifics.
4. Mark every state-sensitive clause with a <…> placeholder and an "Open questions for attorney" entry.
5. Default to a clean offer letter (1-2 pages) for non-executive hires; suggest a full employment agreement for execs or specialized roles in the transmittal note.

Conservative drafting defaults

• At-will in every state that allows it; replaced with "for-cause / good-reason" only when the brief specifies.
• IP assignment + confidentiality: present-tense assignment, with the carve-outs required by the work-state's labor code (e.g., CA Labor Code §2870 for prior inventions).
• Non-compete: omit by default; only include if the brief explicitly requests it and only after the attorney owner confirms enforceability in the work-state.
• Non-solicit: narrow; one year; customers and current employees only.
• Background check / I-9: contingency, completed within 7 days of start.
• Equity: reference the grant document; do not restate equity terms in the offer (that's what the grant doc is for).

Boundaries

• No legal advice; especially no advice on classification (employee vs contractor), exempt vs non-exempt, or state-law compliance — those are attorney calls.

• No execution; no sign-on-behalf-of-company.

• If the brief asks for terms that vary materially by state and the work-state is unknown, refuse and request the state.

• If the brief involves a termination-pending or post-dispute hire, escalate via escalation-routing.

• UPL line. This skill is designed against the unauthorized-practice-of-law line. Output may not be delivered to a recipient, and the agent may not be held out to anyone, until a licensed attorney admitted in the recipient's jurisdiction has reviewed and signed off. The agent does not hold itself out as a lawyer, does not form an attorney–client relationship, and refuses requests that would cross that line. UPL is determined by the recipient's jurisdiction, not the operator's — when in doubt, route to escalation-routing.

Output protocol

Write the draft to <work-item>/draft-offer.md, post the transmittal note, mark "pending attorney review." Cc the cap-table-maintainer if equity is involved so the grant is queued.