Pre-drafting context gathering for a demand letter — parties, facts, basis, leverage, BATNA, and privilege filters — written to a structured intake.md the demand-draft skill reads. Use when the user wants to prep a demand letter, run intake before drafting, or capture context for a payment demand, breach/cure notice, cease-and-desist, employment separation, or preservation demand.
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Pre-drafting context gathering for a demand letter — parties, facts, basis, leverage, BATNA, and privilege filters — written to a structured intake.md the demand-draft skill reads. Use when the user wants to prep a demand letter, run intake before drafting, or capture context for a payment demand, breach/cure notice, cease-and-desist, employment separation, or preservation demand.
Confirm with user: "Intake saved. Run /litigation-legal:demand-draft [slug] when ready."
Demand Intake
Purpose
The drafting is downstream. The value is in the pre-writing — forcing the questions a careless letter skips. Leverage, BATNA, downside tolerance, privilege filters, the actual audience. A demand letter sent without thinking about those is worse than no letter.
Load context
~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/litigation-legal/CLAUDE.md → Demand-letter practice (insurance-tender timing, materiality threshold for matter creation, any seed-doc templates), landscape (counterparty type, repeat-adversary patterns), risk calibration (to pre-estimate materiality), house style. Tone, compliance period, marking, signer are NOT practice-level defaults — they are set per matter in the ## Posture for this matter step below.
Flags
--full → run the complete intake regardless of materiality heuristics (for counsel who wants thorough every time)
The intake
Posture for this matter (ask FIRST, before the core)
Posture for this matter. Demand-letter tone and terms are case-by-case, not a practice default. Ask:
Tone: measured / assertive / aggressive? (depends on the relationship, the amount, and whether litigation is likely)
Response window: what's reasonable given the claim? (14 days is common for payment demands; 30 days for cure; 7 days for cease-and-desist — but the contract or protocol may set it)
Marking: does this need a "without prejudice" or "without prejudice save as to costs" marking? (settlement communications do; assertions of claim often don't; jurisdiction matters — ask if unsure)
Signer: you, the client, the GC, instructed solicitor/counsel?
Don't assume. Read the prior demand correspondence in the matter file if there is any — it establishes the register.
Record the answers in the intake under a section before . These answers govern the rest of the intake and the downstream draft — do not fall back to a practice-level default if the user left any of them blank; ask again.
What happened and when (dates matter — statute-of-limitations, notice periods)
Evidence available (contracts, emails, records, witnesses)
Seed doc opportunity: "If you can share the underlying contract, correspondence, or evidence, the draft will be materially sharper. Paths work."
4. Legal / contractual basis
Which provisions — specific contract sections if applicable
Governing law (jurisdiction, choice-of-law clause)
Statutes or rules relied on (placeholders OK — the draft will flag [CITE:___] anyway)
5. Desired outcome
Specific asks. Not "resolution" — payment of $X by date Y; cessation of specific activity Z; cure within N days; return of specific property.
If multiple asks, order them (primary vs. fallback)
6. Deadlines
External deadline driving this (SoL, ongoing harm window, business event)
Demand compliance deadline — how long we give the recipient. Use the response window captured in ## Posture for this matter above; do not fall back to a practice-level default.
7. Prior outreach
Has this been raised informally? When, by whom, in what form?
Any response so far?
Why is escalation to a demand letter happening now?
8. Distribution
Delivery method (ask; no practice-level default)
Signer — captured in ## Posture for this matter above
Materiality heuristic: ask the strategic block if any of the following are true.
Demand type is cease-desist, breach-cure, employment-separation, or preservation
Desired outcome dollar value ≥ the medium-severity band from ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/litigation-legal/CLAUDE.md risk calibration
Counterparty is a customer, competitor, or frequent adversary per ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/litigation-legal/CLAUDE.md landscape
User ran with --full
Explicit skip option. When the strategic block is triggered, the user can decline to answer it. Ask plainly:
This is a material demand by the heuristic. The strategic block (leverage, BATNA, tone, privilege filters) is where most of the pre-writing value lives. Skipping it produces a thinner draft.
Answer now — walk the strategic block (5-7 min)
Answer partial — walk the subset you feel prepared for
Skip — proceed to draft with only the core block; I'll flag strategic_block: skipped in the intake
If the user chooses Skip, the intake file records it:
strategic_block:skipped# answered | partial | skippedskipped_reason:string|null# captured if user provided one
The draft skill honors the skip — pre-draft gate runs regardless, but sections that depend on strategic-block answers get [SME VERIFY: leverage/tone/privilege not captured in intake] markers. The /demand-draft command also prompts a second time, asking whether the user wants to complete the strategic block before drafting.
9. Leverage and BATNA
What gives us negotiating power (contractual rights, factual leverage, reputational, commercial)
What if they refuse — are we prepared to litigate? Go public? Accept a smaller outcome?
Their likely BATNA — what's their best alternative? (If they don't think we'll sue, the demand is weak.)
10. Downside tolerance
Reputational exposure if this becomes public
Precedent risk — does this letter set a pattern that affects other matters?
Regulatory / disclosure implications (is this the kind of dispute that becomes a 10-Q item?)
Insurance implications — does sending without tendering waive coverage?
11. Tone posture
Already captured in ## Posture for this matter above. Here, probe the trade-off if the user chose a stronger tone than the facts seem to warrant, or a weaker tone than the facts seem to warrant.
Worth naming explicitly: aggressive tone burns the relationship. If you want to keep the business relationship but need to protect the legal position, measured is usually the right call.
12. Settlement-communication posture
Research the settlement-communication protections applicable in the forum (FRE 408 in federal, the state equivalent otherwise). Is this letter a settlement communication that should be protected? Or an assertion of rights that shouldn't be?
If protected: the draft will include the settlement-communication marker and will be structured so the substance (a discussion of compromise) — not just the label — supports the posture.
Protection attaches from conduct and context, not merely from labeling. The marker is a belt-and-suspenders choice.
13. Privilege filters
What's in our internal analysis that must NOT appear in the letter? (Facts we haven't verified, our doubts about our case, strategic reasoning, prior settlement discussions)
A single badly-worded sentence can waive privilege on related analysis. Be explicit about what stays out.
14. Admission and accord-and-satisfaction risk
Anything in the letter that the counterparty could later characterize as an admission of fact or liability?
Does this demand risk inadvertently satisfying (or purporting to accept) a separate claim? (Accord-and-satisfaction: cashing a check marked "payment in full" can end a disputed debt.)
Writing the intake
Slug
[type]-[counterparty-short]-[yyyy-mm]. Confirm uniqueness in ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/litigation-legal/demand-letters/.
[WORK-PRODUCT HEADER — per plugin config ## Outputs — differs by role; see `## Who's using this`]
# Demand Intake: [title]**Slug:** [slug]
**Demand type:** [type]
**Drafted by:** [counsel]
**Opened:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Status:** intake | ready-to-draft | drafted | sent | closed
**Strategic block:** answered | partial | skipped
**Skipped reason:** [if applicable]
---
## Posture-**Tone:** [measured / assertive / aggressive — with one-line rationale tied to the relationship and the amount]
-**Response window:** [N days — tied to the claim / contract / protocol]
-**Marking:** [none / without prejudice / without prejudice save as to costs / other — with rationale]
-**Signer:** [name / role — you / client / GC / instructed counsel]
*This is the per-matter posture captured at intake. The draft skill reads from here.*
---
## Parties-**Sender:** [our entity]
-**Recipient:** [counterparty, entity, address]
-**Recipient audience:** [who reads]
-**Relationship:** [type]
## Triggering event
[What happened, when, evidence]
## Legal / contractual basis
[Provisions, governing law, statutes]
## Desired outcome
[Specific asks in priority order]
## Deadlines-**External:** [SoL, ongoing harm window]
-**Compliance:** [how long we give them]
## Prior outreach
[History, most recent first]
## Distribution-**Delivery:** [method]
-**Signer:** [name/role]
-**Copies:** [list]
---
## Strategic (if applicable)### Leverage & BATNA
[Our power, their likely response]
### Downside tolerance
[Reputational, precedent, regulatory, insurance]
### Tone posture
[relationship-preserving / measured / scorched-earth — with rationale]
### Settlement-communication posture
[Protected or not in the forum — with reasoning. Cite primary source per the applicable rule (FRE 408 or state equivalent).]
### Privilege filters
[What CANNOT appear in the draft]
### Admission / accord-and-satisfaction risk
[Specific risks flagged]
---
## Seed documents
| Doc | Path |
|---|---|
| [underlying contract] | [path or "not shared"] |
| [prior correspondence] | [path or "not shared"] |
| [evidence] | [path or "not shared"] |
---
## Materiality assessment**Auto-heuristic says:** [material / immaterial — with reasoning]
**User call:** [material / immaterial / TBD at post-send]
Confirm before writing
Show the user the draft intake. Flag anything thin:
Here's the intake. I notice [thin spots]. Before I save, anything to add?
Handoff to drafting
End with:
Intake saved. When ready: /litigation-legal:demand-draft [slug]
Close with the next-steps decision tree
End with the next-steps decision tree per CLAUDE.md ## Outputs. Customize the options to what this skill just produced — the five default branches (draft the X, escalate, get more facts, watch and wait, something else) are a starting point, not a lock-in. The tree is the output; the lawyer picks.
What this skill does not do
Draft the letter. That's demand-draft — the two steps are intentionally separate so counsel can pause for business input, outside counsel consult, or insurance tender before drafting.
Decide whether to send the letter. Some intake sessions end with "actually, don't send — let's negotiate directly." That's a valid outcome; the intake record still has value.
Run the conflicts check. If the counterparty is a customer or known entity, flag that this should clear conflicts (per ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/litigation-legal/CLAUDE.md) before sending — but the check itself lives in the matter-intake workflow or outside this skill.
