Interview question legal-risk review

Reviews interview questions before an interviewer asks them and catches the ones that create discrimination risk. A capable base model reliably flags the blatant ones ("How old are you?", "What's your religion?", "Are you married?"), but it under-performs on the two things that actually matter here:

1. Subtle proxies. A question never has to name a protected class to be risky. "What year did

you graduate?" is an age question; "Do you have reliable childcare?" is a caregiver-status question; "Where's that accent from?" is a national-origin question. The base often reads these as friendly small talk and passes them through.

1. The fix, not just the flag. The base tends to say "maybe don't ask that." A hiring manager

needs the compliant reframe — a question that gets the same job-relevant information legally. This skill always supplies the reframe.

It also knows that salary-history questions are now banned in many US states and cities — a rule the base applies inconsistently.

When to activate

• Review / sanity-check / vet a list of planned interview questions before an interview.
• "Is there anything I shouldn't ask?" about a hiring script or interviewer notes.
• Clean up questions an interviewer drafted so they are safe to use.

Not for: scoring a candidate against a rubric (candidate-screening), or writing a job description.

The one principle

Ask about the ability to do the job, never about the personal circumstance behind it. Every compliant reframe replaces a question about who someone is (or their family, health, origin, beliefs, age) with a question about whether they can perform the role's essential functions.

Protected categories and the proxy questions that hide in them

Flag a question if it touches any of these — including indirectly. The proxy phrasings are the ones the base misses.

• Age (ADEA, 40+). Proxies: graduation or birth year, "how long until you retire?",

"you're overqualified / this is a young team", "digital native", references to being close to retirement or "energy level".

• Family / marital / caregiver / pregnancy (Title VII, PDA). Proxies: do you have kids, are

you married, is your spouse local, are you planning a family, are you pregnant, who watches your children, childcare arrangements, "how does your family feel about the travel?".

• Disability / health (ADA). Proxies: any medical condition, prescriptions, past workers'-comp

or sick-leave use, mental-health history, how many sick days you took, "do you have anything that would stop you from…". A physical requirement ("lift 50 lbs") is askable ONLY as a stated essential function ("this role requires lifting up to 50 lbs — can you do that with or without accommodation?"), never as a fishing question about health.

• National origin / citizenship / ancestry (Title VII, IRCA). Proxies: where are you from

originally, birthplace, first language / mother tongue, "what kind of name is that?", accent, "are you a US citizen?" (ask work authorization instead).

• Religion (Title VII). Proxies: what holidays do you observe, are you free to work Saturdays/

Sundays framed around belief, what church do you attend, "any beliefs we should know about?".

• Salary history — where banned. Current or previous pay, "what do you make now?", W-2 or pay

stubs. Banned for employers in many US jurisdictions (California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, and more — the list grows and varies). Flag it and ask about expectations for this role instead.

• Also protected, same treatment: race / color, sex / gender, sexual orientation & gender

identity (Bostock; also many state laws), genetic information (GINA — no family medical history), and arrest record (ask about relevant convictions only, subject to ban-the-box and EEOC guidance).

The full statute-by-statute list and the jurisdiction table for salary-history and ban-the-box rules live in references/jurisdiction-and-topic-catalog.md — consult it for a jurisdiction or edge case not shown here.

What to return

For each risky question, give three things:

1. Flag + category — which protected class it risks.
2. Why — one line on why it's a proxy (the interviewer usually didn't intend harm).
3. Compliant reframe — a job-related question that gets the legitimate information legally, or

"drop — not job-related" when there is no legitimate version.

Leave clearly job-related questions ("Walk me through a project you led", "Are you available for the on-call rotation?") unflagged. Do not manufacture risk where there is none.

Reframe patterns (representative)

| Risky question | Compliant reframe | |---|---| | "Are you a US citizen?" | "Are you legally authorized to work in the US?" | | "What year did you graduate?" | Drop — ask about relevant experience, not dates. | | "Do you have kids / childcare sorted?" | "This role has occasional evening shifts and travel — can you meet that schedule?" | | "Where are you from originally?" | Drop — not job-related. | | "Is English your first language?" | "This role requires writing client reports in English — are you comfortable with that?" | | "What's your current salary?" | "What are your salary expectations for this role?" (and it may be illegal to ask) | | "Any health issues that would get in the way?" | "Can you perform the essential functions of this role, with or without reasonable accommodation?" | | "What holidays do you observe?" | "This role occasionally requires weekend coverage — are you able to work weekends?" |

Notes

• This is general guidance for US federal + common state rules and is not legal advice; laws

change and vary by jurisdiction — confirm current local law before finalizing a hiring script.

• Volunteered information is different from a question. The skill reviews what the interviewer

plans to ask.