A Legal Answer in Time to Use It
5 min read
Some legal questions arrive while a judge is waiting. Others come from a client during a negotiation: “Can we accept this?” A thorough analysis may contain the answer, yet still require the lawyer to extract the intervention needed at that moment. This skill proposes a way to prepare that intervention while keeping its legal basis accessible.
Acknowledging the starting point
The inspiration deserves explicit credit. Ayoub Ghriss created i-have-adhd, a skill designed to make coding-assistant responses easier to navigate and act on. Its guidance includes putting important information first, organizing actions and avoiding tangents. The project is published under the MIT license. The legal skill presented here uses independently written instructions and acknowledges that design inspiration; it does not imply collaboration or endorsement.
Original project: https://github.com/ayghri/i-have-adhd
Original skill: https://github.com/ayghri/i-have-adhd/blob/main/skills/i-have-adhd/SKILL.md
Original license: https://github.com/ayghri/i-have-adhd/blob/main/LICENSE
That origin should not turn ADHD into a metaphor for professional pressure. The US National Institute of Mental Health describes ADHD as a developmental disorder with varied presentations and specific diagnostic requirements. Needing a short answer during a demanding meeting does not establish a diagnosis. Nor should a tool assume that all people with ADHD read, think or work in the same way.
NIMH information: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-what-you-need-to-know
The proposed transfer concerns response design. An accessibility-oriented project can inspire useful approaches in other settings while retaining recognition of the people and needs that motivated it. This adaptation makes no clinical claim, offers no treatment and does not equate ADHD with distraction, lack of rigor or reduced professional ability.
What legal practice adds
In legal work, compression can change meaning. Removing an exception may turn a qualified conclusion into an absolute one. A proposed settlement term may become an apparent acceptance. An allegation may be presented as an established fact. The adaptation therefore requires the short answer to preserve the condition that makes its conclusion defensible.
Its initial structure is simple: answer, decisive basis, and request or next step where needed. The lawyer can then consult the supporting source, assumptions and strongest relevant objection. This private support stays separate from the words intended for a client, court or counterparty. Confidential negotiating limits do not belong in an external message merely because they were supplied as drafting context.
A rapid-response mode must also allow different legal choices. A defective witness question may need reformulation. A proper question may deserve a firm response identifying the applicable rule and the facts satisfying it. Missing evidence may require a clarification rather than either position. Tone and formatting cannot decide those issues.
Keeping the basis inside the intervention
Consider a synthetic exercise with a supplied procedural rule permitting questions about instructions personally received by a witness. Opposing counsel objects that the question asks the witness to speculate about another person's intent. If the actual question asks only what instructions the witness received, the proposed response could be:
“I ask that the objection be overruled. The question concerns an instruction the witness personally received, not the speaker's intention. It falls within the category permitted by the applicable rule.”
This illustrates structure, not the law of any particular jurisdiction. Before using it in a real hearing, counsel must verify the governing rule and the evidentiary foundation. The skill organizes the intervention; it cannot establish those prerequisites by itself. If verification is unavailable, it must identify the gap rather than supply a plausible citation.
WhatsApp requires attention to the recipient
The same method can help with “Draft the WhatsApp reply.” The goal is a message the lawyer can review quickly, with working notes kept separately.
Suppose a fictional contract limits general liability to annual fees but excludes a broad indemnity. A client-facing message might read:
“The annual-fee cap does not cover the entire exposure: the indemnity sits outside it. Before accepting, I suggest negotiating a separate cap for that obligation. We still need to check whether another clause changes this reading.”
The unresolved condition remains visible because it matters to the client's decision. Internal negotiating limits remain private. Small distinctions must survive: “we could propose” is not “we accept.” Drafting a message does not authorize sending it.
Optional comparison, without a staged victory
At the user's request, the skill can present a developed answer alongside an answer for immediate use. Both must use the same factual and source basis, reach compatible conclusions and preserve material conditions. The developed version should be competent; padding it with filler would create a misleading comparison.
When both versions are produced to illustrate presentation, they must be labeled as such. An actual experiment requires separate runs under controlled conditions. On a narrow screen or in WhatsApp, consecutive labeled blocks may be more readable than columns. The layout serves the reader rather than imposing a format.
What would count as evidence of improvement?
This is a candidate method. Examples show its intended behavior; they do not establish better legal accuracy, fewer errors or time savings in practice.
Evaluation should compare the same tasks, sources and context with and without the skill. Professional review should assess correctness, preservation of conditions, traceable support, usefulness of the spoken or written intervention and review time. A shorter response that loses a material exception should fail. Evaluation must also test when to ask for information, withhold a conclusion or expand the explanation.
The intended contribution is practical: help the lawyer locate a defensible response sooner, recognize what remains unverified and retain control over what is ultimately said, written or decided.
Companion skill: Legal in the Moment