| name | employment-law-research |
| title | US Employment Law Research |
| description | Research a US employment law topic across federal, state, and city jurisdictions and produce structured research notes with proper source attribution. Use this skill any time the user asks about US employment laws, regulations, or pending legislation - from a single jurisdiction question to a 50-state survey. Triggers include phrases like "research [employment law topic]", "what are the laws on [employment topic]", "state-by-state [employment topic]", "help me understand [topic] across the US", or any prompt that asks for a legal landscape overview before another deliverable. Always run this BEFORE the employment-law-dashboard skill if a dashboard is the eventual output. Output is a structured research note that distinguishes primary sources (statutes, regs, agency guidance) from secondary sources (law firm alerts, tracker orgs). |
| author | bstevescherer |
| author_url | https://github.com/bstevescherer/heycounsel-community/tree/main/skills/employment-law-research |
| license | MIT |
| version | 0.1.0 |
| execution_mode | open |
| jurisdiction | us |
| practice | employment |
| language | en |
US Employment Law Research
This skill produces a structured research note on a specific area of US employment law. The note is the input for downstream work like building a dashboard, writing a memo, or briefing a stakeholder. The most important thing the skill does is enforce a clean separation between primary-source claims (the statute says X) and secondary-source claims (Cooley wrote about it last week).
Use this skill standalone when the user just wants research, OR as the first step before the employment-law-dashboard skill. If a dashboard is the eventual deliverable, complete this skill's workflow first and save the research note before invoking the dashboard skill.
When to use
The skill should fire whenever a user asks for research, comparison, or landscape on a US employment law topic. Examples:
- "Research the state of US laws on workplace surveillance."
- "What are the pay transparency laws across the US?"
- "Help me understand non-compete enforcement state by state."
- "I need a brief on pregnancy accommodation requirements nationally."
- "Make a dashboard for [employment law topic]" → run this first, then the dashboard skill.
Workflow
1. Clarify scope before researching
Before doing any web searches, lock down five things with the user:
- Topic — be specific. "AI in hiring" is too broad; "use of AI tools for employment decisions" is workable.
- Jurisdictional scope — federal layer + which states? Default to "federal layer + the 3-5 most prominent state regimes + any city laws", but confirm.
- Deep-dive jurisdictions — ask the user which states or cities they want a more detailed treatment of. The downstream dashboard supports one or more deep-dive tabs (one per jurisdiction). Suggest a default based on the topic (typically the most stringent or most-litigated regime), but ask explicitly: "Which states do you want a deep-dive page for? I'd suggest [X] but happy to do more or different ones." Capture the full list before researching so you know which jurisdictions to gather extra detail on.
- Recency window — how recent does "recent" mean? Default last 12 months for legislation, last 6 months for reporting.
- Audience — practitioner / executive / general. This shifts how technical the writeup gets.
For dashboard prerequisites, you can usually inherit scope from the dashboard request directly without a separate clarification round.
2. Read the source policy
Before searching, read references/source-policies.md. This is the load-bearing constraint of the skill. It explains which kinds of statements need primary sources only, and which can use reputable secondary sources. Apply it as you research, not just at writeup time — if you find yourself reaching for a secondary source for a statutory claim, push back to the primary source.
