Identify Issues In Counterpartys Motion Brief

---
name: identify-issues-in-counterpartys-motion-brief
task_id: trusts-estates-private-client/identify-issues-in-counterpartys-motion-brief
description: Closes the gap where agents summarize opposing motions without carefully comparing stated financial figures to source records, identifying omissions from sworn financial declarations, challenging lay witness opinion testimony that exceeds competence bounds, and assessing the legal standard for the specific relief requested.
activates_for: [planner, solver, checker]
---

# Skill: Identify Issues in Counterparty's Motion Brief

## 1. Subject-matter triage

- Treat this as an issue-spotting memorandum, not a merits brief.
- Identify each requested form of temporary relief, then test the motion, declarations, and financial records against the governing domestic-relations standards.
- If the record contains multiple income periods, dates, parties, or requested remedies, enumerate them first and analyze each separately; do not compress distinct issues into one pass.
- If only one disputed issue exists, state that expressly and explain why.

## 2. Failure modes the skill is correcting

- Treating stated income figures as accurate without reconciling them to tax materials, business records, bank records, or other source documents.
- Missing omissions from a sworn financial declaration, especially where the omission affects support, asset restraint, disclosure completeness, or credibility.
- Accepting lay declarations that stray into expert, medical, forensic, accounting, or other specialized opinions.
- Failing to test whether the requested temporary relief satisfies its specific legal predicate rather than relying on general hardship or relationship breakdown allegations.
- Not tying an asserted income discrepancy to the proposed support calculation, custody request, asset restraint, or other downstream consequence.
- Overlooking inconsistent dates, inconsistent descriptions of separation or residence, or mismatched factual premises across documents.
- Treating business perquisites or other noncash economic benefits as irrelevant when they may bear on income or lifestyle.
- Ignoring whether the motion’s evidentiary support actually supports the precise relief sought.

## 3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply

- Verified financial declarations are sworn statements; material omissions or incomplete disclosures can undermine reliability and support a request for supplementation, clarification, or further discovery.
- Support calculations turn on actual income and other economic resources; compare declared income to tax returns, profit-and-loss materials, payroll records, distribution records, and other business documents.
- Noncash benefits and business-paid expenses may be economic resources relevant to support analysis if they function as personal compensation or reduce living costs.
- Lay witness testimony is limited to personal knowledge and direct observation; opinions requiring specialized knowledge must be flagged under the jurisdiction’s evidence rules governing lay opinion, expert testimony, and foundation.
- Temporary restraining relief over assets generally requires a specific evidentiary basis tied to dissipation, concealment, or similar risk; generalized dissatisfaction is usually insufficient.
- Exclusive possession, temporary custody, and emergency or interim relief each require the governing domestic-relations standard to be stated and applied, not assumed.
- Inconsistent separation or valuation dates can alter the scope of property accumulation, dissipation analysis, support timing, and custody framing.
- The controlling authority for each proposition must be named in the memo using the applicable statute, rule, regulation, or leading case recognized in the jurisdiction or in the source materials.

## 4. Analytical scaffolds

1. For each factual assertion in the motion, identify the cited source document and test whether it actually supports the assertion.
2. For each income figure, compare the declaration to the source records and identify the direction and significance of any gap; then explain how that gap affects the requested relief.
3. For each omission from a sworn financial declaration, state what was omitted, why it matters, and whether the omission supports supplementation, impeachment, or a discovery request.
4. For each declaration or exhibit, separate personal observation from opinion; flag any statement that exceeds lay competence or lacks foundation.
5. For each request for temporary or extraordinary relief, state the governing legal standard, identify the evidence offered, and explain whether the evidence closes the gap.
6. For each date inconsistency, identify the documents that conflict, explain the practical effect, and note whether the inconsistency changes the support, custody, or property analysis.
7. For each issue, close the analysis by tying together: the size or scale of the discrepancy, the cross-document conflict, and the downstream consequence for the client.

## 5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships

- Read the motion, sworn declaration, tax materials, business records, and any client intake materials together; each may qualify or contradict the others.
- Later financial statements may reveal that earlier declared figures were incomplete or stale; use temporal sequencing to test whether the motion relies on outdated numbers.
- If the motion invokes household spending, business distributions, or personal expenses paid by a business, trace the vertical relationship between the entity record and the individual income claim.
- If one document references a different separation or residence date than another, treat the chronology as material and explain the effect on relief timing and financial exposure.

## 6. Output structure conventions

- Single deliverable: issue-spotting memorandum.
- Use a conventional memo structure: caption/case identification, short summary of the motion, prioritized issue list, analysis, and recommended actions.
- Define a uniform severity scale once near the top and apply it to every issue entry.
- For each issue, include: severity; the motion’s claim; the controlling authority; the supporting or conflicting source documents; the defect or omission; and the practical consequence.
- Make the issues section prioritized, with the most legally or financially significant issues first.
- For each legal proposition relied on, cite the controlling authority by name and section or other identifying citation.
- End with an explicit Recommended Actions section that lists concrete next steps, the responsible role, and a timing anchor tied to the hearing, disclosure deadline, or other procedural milestone.
- Keep the memo focused on issue identification and response strategy; do not draft argument paragraphs as if for filing.