Demand Intake Uk Agents

---
name: demand-intake-uk-agents
title: /demand-intake
description: Pre-drafting context gathering for a Letter Before Action or Letter of Claim — 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 Letter Before Action, run intake before drafting, or capture context for a payment demand, breach/cure notice, cease-and-desist, employment separation, or preservation demand.
author: uk-agents
author_url: https://github.com/uk-agents/uk-legal-plugins/tree/main/litigation-legal-uk/skills/demand-intake
license: Apache-2.0
version: 0.1.0
execution_mode: open
jurisdiction: gb
practice: litigation
language: en
---

# /demand-intake

1. Load `~/.claude/plugins/config/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/CLAUDE.md` → Letter Before Action practice, landscape, risk calibration.
2. Follow the workflow and reference below.
3. Run the adaptive intake (core 8 always; strategic block if material or `--full`).
4. Generate slug from title + counterparty + year-month.
5. Write `~/.claude/plugins/config/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/demand-letters/[slug]/intake.md`.
6. Confirm with user: "Intake saved. Run `/litigation-legal-uk: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 Letter Before Action sent without thinking about those is worse than no letter.

## Load context

- `~/.claude/plugins/config/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/CLAUDE.md` → Letter Before Action / Letter of Claim 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, and 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.** Letter Before Action tone and terms are case-by-case, not a practice default. Ask:
> - **Tone:** measured / assertive / aggressive? (depends on the relationship, the amount, and whether proceedings are likely)
> - **Response window:** what's reasonable given the claim? (14 days is common for payment demands; 30 days for cure; the applicable CPR pre-action protocol may set a specific period — check first)
> - **Marking:** does this need a "without prejudice" or "without prejudice save as to costs" marking? (settlement communications do; assertions of claim often don't; ask if unsure)
> - **Signer:** you, the client, the GC, instructed solicitors/counsel?
> Don't assume. Read the prior correspondence in the matter file if there is any — it establishes the register. Check whether a specific CPR pre-action protocol applies to the claim type before settling on tone and timeline.

Record the answers in the intake under a `## Posture` section before `## Parties`. 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.

### Core — always asked (8 questions)

**1. Demand type**
`payment | breach-cure | cease-desist | employment-separation | preservation | other`

**2. Parties**
- **Sender:** our company (and any specific entity if multi-entity)
- **Recipient:** counterparty — name, entity, address
- **Recipient audience:** who actually reads (GC? CEO? individual? in-house legal?)
- **Relationship:** `customer | vendor | ex-employee | competitor | third-party | other`

**3. Triggering event**
- What happened and when (dates matter — limitation periods, notice periods, pre-action protocol timelines)
- 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; if England & Wales, which CPR pre-action protocol applies?)
- Statutes, regulations, 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 (limitation period, 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 and check the applicable CPR pre-action protocol.

**7. Prior outreach**
- Has this been raised informally? When, by whom, in what form?
- Any response so far?
- Why is escalation to a Letter Before Action happening now?

**8. Distribution**
- Delivery method (ask; no practice-level default — consider recorded post, email with read-receipt, courier)
- Signer — captured in `## Posture for this matter` above
- Copies — internal stakeholders, insurance carrier (if tendering pre-demand per practice-level tender-timing rule), solicitors

### Strategic — asked if material, or if `--full`

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 value ≥ the medium-severity band from `~/.claude/plugins/config/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/CLAUDE.md` risk calibration
- Counterparty is a customer, competitor, or frequent adversary per `~/.claude/plugins/config/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/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:

```yaml
strategic_block: skipped        # answered | partial | skipped
skipped_reason: string | null   # captured if user provided one
```

The draft skill honours 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 issue proceedings? Go public? Accept a smaller outcome?
- Their likely BATNA — what's their best alternative? (If they don't think we'll issue proceedings, 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
- 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**
- Consider whether this letter should be marked "without prejudice" (a settlement communication that cannot be admitted in evidence) or "without prejudice save as to costs" (cannot be admitted on liability but admissible on costs — a standard Calderbank-style offer). Or neither — an open assertion of claim.
- Protection attaches from conduct and context as well as the label. A letter that makes a concession or discusses compromise in the body is a settlement communication regardless of the absence of a marking.
- If open (no marking): the draft will be structured as a straightforward assertion of claim with no concessions or compromise language.

**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 without-prejudice discussions)
- A single badly-worded sentence can waive legal professional privilege on related analysis. Be explicit about what stays out.

**14. Admission risk**
- Anything in the letter that the counterparty could later characterise as an admission of fact or liability?
- Does this demand risk inadvertently satisfying (or purporting to accept) a separate claim?

## Writing the intake

### Slug

`[type]-[counterparty-short]-[yyyy-mm]`. Confirm uniqueness in `~/.claude/plugins/config/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/demand-letters/`.

### `~/.claude/plugins/config/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/demand-letters/[slug]/intake.md`

```markdown
[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 / applicable CPR pre-action protocol]
- **Marking:** [none / without prejudice / without prejudice save as to costs / other — with rationale]
- **Signer:** [name / role — you / client / GC / instructed solicitors]
- **Applicable CPR pre-action protocol:** [name / default Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct / none]

*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 — OSCOLA citation style for any authorities]

## Desired outcome

[Specific asks in priority order]

## Deadlines

- **External:** [limitation period, 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

[Without prejudice / without prejudice save as to costs / open assertion — with reasoning]

### Privilege filters

[What CANNOT appear in the draft]

### Admission 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-uk:demand-draft [slug]`

## Close with the next-steps decision tree

End with the next-steps decision tree per CLAUDE.md `## Outputs`. Customise 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, external solicitors 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/uk-legal-plugins/litigation-legal-uk/CLAUDE.md`) before sending — but the check itself lives in the matter-intake workflow or outside this skill.
- Identify the applicable CPR pre-action protocol. It will prompt for this, but confirming which protocol applies (debt, professional negligence, personal injury, construction, etc.) is for counsel or external solicitors to verify before the letter goes out.