Adversarial premortem for England & Wales civil litigation - builds the strongest version of a case, then attacks it from four angles to find where it loses before opposing counsel does. Runs an adversarial premortem on a UK litigation matter. Builds the strongest version of the case, then attacks it from four angles — procedural, substantive, evidentiary, strategic — to find where it actually loses. Returns a ranked stress-test brief: failure scenarios, evidence inconsistencies, blind spots, mitigations, and one brutal one-sentence verdict. Use before issue, before settlement negotiations, before a litigation-funder pitch, or before deciding whether to take a case.
pre-motion
Adversarial premortem for England & Wales civil litigation. Builds the strongest version of a case, then attacks it from four angles — procedural, substantive, evidentiary, strategic — to find where it loses before opposing counsel does.
For solicitors stress-testing before issue, in-house counsel before sign-off, mediators valuing settlement, and litigation funders pricing a matter.
Install
Part of the claude-for-uk-legal plugin suite:
/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/b1rdmania/claude-for-uk-legal
/plugin install uk-litigation-legal@claude-for-uk-legal
Or install the single skill directly:
cp -r pre-motion ~/.claude/skills/pre-motion
Usage
/pre-motion
/pre-motion --depth=fast
/pre-motion --depth=thorough
Run it against a matter with the facts, evidence references, claim heads, and the strongest version of the case as you see it. It returns a ranked stress-test brief.
What it does
- Builds the optimistic baseline — the strongest version the evidence supports.
- Inspects the evidence: document gaps, cross-document contradictions, timeline holes, each flagged with a severity.
- Runs four adversarial passes (parallel sub-agents where supported, otherwise sequential), each told the case has been lost and asked to walk back why — one per failure category.
- Synthesises a brief: ranked failure scenarios with severity, likelihood and mitigation; evidence inconsistencies; blind spots; settlement-posture implications; and one one-sentence verdict.
- Marks every uncertain point inline —
[CITE NEEDED],[SME VERIFY],[EVIDENCE FLAG]— so nothing reads as settled.
What it doesn't do
- Predict the outcome — it surfaces failure modes, not results.
- Decide whether to take, settle, or withdraw — those are counsel's calls.
- Replace a formal counsel opinion. It is a structured prompt for that conversation, not a substitute.
- Cover non-UK procedure (US federal, Scotland, Northern Ireland).
- Verify case law against a live source — check any authority it cites before relying on it.
Requirements
- Claude Code or Claude Cowork. No MCP connectors required.
- A matter to run against (facts and evidence references). In a host workspace, the CPR 31.22 / privilege gate is enforced upstream; run standalone only on material you are permitted to use.
License
Apache-2.0.