legal-aid-plugin

Help a managing attorney author a per-practice-area guide that configures how staff-facing skills behave — intake questions specific to this practice area, escalation posture (handle / escalate / refer), review gates, funder-restriction overrides, cross-area watch list, local rules, and practice-area draft templates. Use when a managing attorney wants to build or revise a per-practice-area guide, tune how the skills behave for a specific practice area, or set the office's escalation philosophy as plugin configuration.

Per-case handoff memo for rolling staff transitions — departure, role change, leave coverage, intake-to-staff routing. Status snapshot, what's pending, what's next, deadlines, conflict re-check for the incoming attorney, open questions for the supervisor. Use when a case is moving between staff for any reason, when a staffer is going on leave, or when intake hands a matter to a staff attorney for the first time.

Log a client or prospective-client communication — call, email, text, letter, in-person, voicemail. Append-only per-case record with dated entries, direction, medium, summary, action items. Rule 1.18-aware for prospective clients (even declined matters); VAWA-aware for confidentiality with DV survivors. Works alongside /client-letter and /status client. Use when logging a call or client email, reviewing a communication log, or asking "what did we tell [client] last time".

Structured intake on a matter that has cleared eligibility screening. Pulls upstream conversation context if LIA-MCP or VIA-MCP is connected, routes to practice-area template, spots cross-area issues, runs full conflict check, propagates funder-source matrix and funding-restriction flags from screening, classifies urgency, and produces a formatted case summary the staff attorney analyzes and the managing attorney reviews. Does NOT decide case acceptance. Use after /eligibility-screening, when starting a new client intake, or writing up a new client's situation.

Routine client correspondence from templates — appointment confirmations, document requests, brief "we filed it" updates, engagement letters, eligibility-decline letters (with referral), case-closing letters. Plain language (6th-grade target), language-served-aware (per CLAUDE.md), required elements, supervision routing. NOT substantive advice; use /status client for that, or a conversation. Use when a staffer needs to send routine correspondence to a prospective client, current client, or declined-matter caller.

Managing attorney's one-time office setup — practice areas, funding sources and eligibility guidelines, jurisdiction, supervision style (formal review queue / configurable flags / lighter-touch), conflict-check process, and seed documents (handbook, filing guides, eligibility tables, intake forms). Writes CLAUDE.md so every other skill and every staffer who runs /onboard reads from the same office context. Use on fresh install, when CLAUDE.md has placeholders, when re-doing setup with --redo, or when re-checking integrations with --check-integrations.

Track case deadlines — add, cross-case rollup, update, complete, close. Warns at configurable thresholds (default 14/7/3/1 days); overdue items stay flagged until resolved. Funder-tagged so the rollup can filter by funder source for capacity planning. The operational record for a legal aid office's workload. Use when staff or managing attorney needs to add a deadline, ask what's due this week, get a deadline report, or update a case deadline.

First draft of a common civil legal aid document — eviction answers, protective order petitions, demand letters, debt validation letters, benefits appeals, asylum declarations, motions to vacate default judgments, FOIA requests, fair hearing requests, and others. Reads practice-area templates from CLAUDE.md and the practice-area guide, applies jurisdiction-specific formatting, propagates funder-restriction flags from intake, marks every uncertain element. Explicitly a starting point requiring staff analysis and managing-attorney review. Use when a staffer needs a first draft of a pleading, letter, petition, declaration, or other document.

Funding-source-aware screening — income, assets, residency, citizenship/ immigration status, conflicts, and case-type priority. Produces a screening result the intake specialist or staff attorney reviews and the managing attorney approves. Does NOT decide acceptance. Use at the front of every intake, before /client-intake, when a prospective client first contacts the office.

Funder reporting data extraction. Reads the office's funder reporting cadence and format from CLAUDE.md, queries the case-management system (or instructs on manual extraction), and produces a data package matching each funder's expected format — LSC CSR semi-annual, IOLTA narrative, VAWA quarterly, HUD reports, foundation milestones, state appropriation reports. Does NOT submit. Generates the data package the office's reporting workflow consumes. Use at reporting cadence, ad-hoc when a funder requests data, or to dry-run a reporting cycle.

Managing attorney's review queue — staff output waits here for approval before going to clients or courts. Only active if "formal review queue" supervision style was chosen at setup; dormant under "configurable flags" or "lighter-touch" modes. Use when the managing attorney wants to see what's waiting for review, approve, edit-then-approve, or return an item. Emergency-tier items surface at top regardless of queue position.

IRAC-scaffolded case analysis memo with research gaps flagged and a funder-restriction analysis section when any [FUNDING RESTRICTION] flag is live on the matter. Rule blocks are RESEARCH NEEDED; Application is STAFF ANALYSIS prompts; Conclusion is blank. The scaffold, not the analysis. Use when a staff attorney needs to scaffold a case analysis memo, write up their analysis, or build an IRAC memo for a managing- attorney review.

New-staff onboarding — office procedures, tools walkthrough, jurisdiction basics, supervision model, funder restrictions, and practice exercises before real cases. Reads the procedures manual the managing attorney uploaded at setup and teaches it interactively. Use when a new staffer says "onboard me", "I'm new to the office", "getting started", or when a paralegal, staff attorney, intake specialist, or volunteer attorney joins. Pass --card for the one-page reference.

Research roadmap for a legal issue — statutory starting points, case law areas, agency guidance, secondary sources (NCLC, Shriver Center, practice manuals), search terms for free research tools (CourtListener, Descrybe, Free Law Project) and paid ones if the office has them. Leads and frameworks, NOT authoritative citations; staff verify and develop everything. Use when a staffer asks where to start researching, wants a research roadmap for an issue, or needs gaps identified in existing research.

Case status summary by audience — client-facing (6th-grade plain language), internal (for the managing attorney), court-ready (formal caption format per local rules), or funder (ad-hoc update for a funder's monitoring request, separate from the full /lsc-report cycle). Same facts, different framing and depth. Use when a staffer needs to update the client, brief the managing attorney, prepare a court status report, or respond to a funder's request for an update on a specific matter.