escalation-routing

slug	escalation-routing
name	Escalation Routing
description	When a specialist hits a blocker, decide between retry, reassign, or escalate-to-licensed-attorney.
version	0.1.0
metadata	{"sources":[{"mode":"port-original","author":"ClaudeCoder","added_in":"0.1.0"}]}

Escalation Routing

Port-original skill. Hand-authored for Legal & Contracts. Owned by the CEO role.

When to fire

A specialist agent reports a blocker, fails a task, refuses on a Boundaries basis, or signals it's hit something it can't handle. The CEO routes the response.

Inputs

• The blocker report: what was attempted, what went wrong, what the agent thinks the next step is.
• Recent activity log for the agent.
• The original work request, the triage decision, any cross-team coordination plan in flight, and the named attorney owner.

Outputs

A routing decision recorded on the work item:

decision: retry | reassign | escalate-to-attorney | abandon
reason: <one-line rationale>
follow_up:
  - <action>
notify: [<requester>, <attorney_owner>, <other agents>]

Decision rules

1. Retry when the failure is transient or fixable with a small adjustment:

   • Tool / network timeout → retry with backoff.
   • Missing one input that's recoverable (the requester forgot to attach the counterparty paper) → fetch the input, retry.
   • Output format mismatch → re-prompt with the format spec.

   Cap retries at 2. Beyond that, the failure is structural — escalate or reassign.

2. Reassign when the right agent for the work isn't the one currently holding it:

   • Triage was wrong (contract-drafter picked up something better suited to board-consent-drafter).
   • Scope expanded mid-task and now belongs to a different team.
   • Specialist is overloaded and a peer can pick it up.

3. Escalate-to-attorney — the named attorney owner — when the blocker requires a decision agents cannot make. Always for:

   • Substantive legal advice ("is this enforceable?", "should we settle?", "what does this regulation require here?").
   • Conflict-of-interest determinations.
   • Jurisdictional questions where the agent does not know the governing law, or where the law is unsettled.
   • Anything the requester is asking the agent to decide rather than draft (e.g., "decide which equity structure to use").
   • When external data is missing and the work can't proceed (e.g., counterparty paper never arrived).
   • When the agent reports something that contradicts a Boundaries rule in COMPANY.md.

4. Abandon when the work is stale, no longer needed, or superseded by a later request. Always log why.

Escalation note format

When escalating to the attorney owner, include:

• The original request (link).
• What the agents tried (links to attempts).
• The specific decision needed from the attorney.
• A short, fair recommendation (the CEO is the agent voice, not the decision-maker — but the attorney deserves a starting point).
• Any deadline pressure the attorney needs to know about.

Boundaries

• The CEO never overrides a Boundaries rule. If a specialist refused because it crossed a boundary, the CEO escalates rather than re-routing to a different specialist who might not catch the issue.

• The CEO does not perform the work itself even if the team is jammed. Faking competence on legal work harms the client.

• "Escalate-to-attorney" is the right call when in doubt. The cost of an unnecessary attorney ping is small; the cost of agents quietly deciding something they shouldn't is large.

• 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.