matter-intake-scoping

Matter scoping across the full pre-execution arc — organise client data into a structured brief, capture the agreed baseline, or reconstruct scope mid-flight. Use when making sense of client information before a proposal, scoping a new matter, running a kickoff, defining scope, mapping stakeholders, or inheriting a matter mid-flight. Trigger on: 'make sense of this', 'structure this for the proposal', 'scope this matter', 'new matter', 'kickoff', 'what are we doing', 'who are the stakeholders', 'what does success look like', 'matter setup', 'intake', 'I've inherited this matter', 'organise this client data'.

Quality

73%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

—

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/matter-intake-scoping/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

100%

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

This is a strong, well-crafted skill description that clearly defines its domain (matter scoping in the pre-execution phase), lists concrete actions, and provides extensive explicit trigger guidance. The 'Use when...' and 'Trigger on:' sections give Claude excellent selection signals with natural user language. The description is domain-specific enough to avoid conflicts while being comprehensive in its coverage of relevant scenarios.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Lists multiple specific concrete actions: 'organise client data into a structured brief', 'capture the agreed baseline', 'reconstruct scope mid-flight'. Also references specific sub-tasks like scoping, kickoff, stakeholder mapping, and matter setup.	3 / 3
Completeness	Clearly answers both 'what' (organise client data, capture baseline, reconstruct scope) and 'when' with an explicit 'Use when...' clause covering multiple scenarios, plus a dedicated 'Trigger on:' list with specific phrases.	3 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	Excellent coverage of natural trigger terms users would actually say, including conversational phrases like 'make sense of this', 'what are we doing', 'I've inherited this matter', 'scope this matter', 'new matter', 'kickoff', and more formal terms like 'intake' and 'matter setup'.	3 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	Occupies a clear niche — matter scoping in the pre-execution arc of legal/professional services work. The domain-specific terminology ('matter', 'kickoff', 'intake', 'inherited this matter') makes it highly distinguishable from generic project management or document organization skills.	3 / 3
	Total	12 / 12 Passed

Implementation

47%

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

This is a comprehensive, well-structured skill for legal project management matter intake with excellent workflow clarity across four distinct modes and strong template formats. However, it is significantly over-length, with extensive explanatory prose about why things matter, partner dynamics, and philosophical framing that Claude doesn't need. The content would benefit greatly from aggressive trimming and splitting into referenced sub-files for each mode.

Suggestions

Reduce verbosity by at least 50% — remove explanatory sections like 'The problem this solves', 'Operational knowledge — why intake fails', and inline rationale paragraphs (e.g., why confidence labels matter). Trust Claude to understand the purpose from the instructions alone.

Split each mode into its own referenced file (e.g., mode-1-pre-engagement.md, mode-2-quick-intake.md) with SKILL.md serving as a concise overview and router, improving progressive disclosure.

Move the M365 Connected Mode section and the LPM vs attorney boundary section to separate reference files — these are contextual guidance, not core workflow instructions.

Convert narrative step descriptions into tighter bullet-point instructions — e.g., Step 2's source extraction guidance is a wall of prose that could be a concise table mapping source types to extraction targets.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The skill is extremely verbose at ~400+ lines. It extensively explains why intake fails, the philosophy behind confidence labels, the partner's role, and operational context that Claude already understands. Sections like 'The problem this solves' and 'Operational knowledge — why intake fails' are explanatory rather than instructional. Many paragraphs could be reduced to bullet points or removed entirely.	1 / 3
Actionability	The skill provides concrete document templates, structured formats, and clear output specifications (scope summary, delta table, SCC handoff block). However, there is no executable code, no actual script references, and much of the guidance is procedural prose rather than copy-paste-ready commands. The templates are useful but the steps themselves are described narratively rather than as precise executable instructions.	2 / 3
Workflow Clarity	Each mode has clearly sequenced steps with explicit validation checkpoints. Mode 1 has seven numbered steps building logically from matter-type identification through to brief drafting. Mode 4's mid-matter recovery has a clear backwards-working methodology with three structured outputs and explicit handoff instructions. Confidence labeling serves as a built-in validation mechanism throughout, and cross-skill handoff points are clearly defined.	3 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	The skill references external files (standing-assumptions.md, matter-type-profiles/) and cross-skill handoffs, which is good structure. However, no bundle files are provided, so the references are unverifiable. More critically, the SKILL.md itself is monolithic — all four modes with full templates and operational guidance are inline rather than split into separate referenced files. The 'Operational knowledge — why intake fails' section and M365 connected mode section could easily be separate references.	2 / 3
	Total	8 / 12 Passed

Validation

100%

Warnings & errors only

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 11 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository: legalopsconsulting/lpm-skills
Commit: dc6509d

Reviewed: 19 days ago

Table of Contents

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