Pre-Motion — adversarial premortem for UK litigation

Pre-Motion — adversarial premortem for UK litigation

You think you've built the strongest version of your case. Pre-Motion runs it through a structured adversarial pipeline to find where it actually loses — the procedural, substantive, evidentiary, and strategic failure modes opposing counsel will pull on first. The opposite of confirmation bias, by design.

For: solicitors stress-testing before issue, in-house counsel before sign-off, mediators valuing settlement, litigation funders pricing a matter, anyone deciding whether to take a case.

How it runs

Four passes over the matter. Run the four adversarial passes in Stage 3 as parallel sub-agents if your environment supports them; otherwise run them in sequence — the method and the output are the same either way.

1. Optimistic baseline. Build the strongest version of the case the evidence supports. This is the foil for everything that follows.
2. Evidence inspection. Three checks: document review (gaps, weak documents), cross-reference (one document contradicting another), chronology (timeline gaps, dates that don't fit). Produce evidence flags with a severity each.
3. Premortem adversary. Four adversarial passes, one per failure category below. Give each the same frame: "It is [trial date + 1 year]. This case has been LOST. Walk back — what in your category caused the loss?" Produce ranked failure scenarios per category.
4. Synthesis. Diff the optimistic baseline against the adversarial findings. Produce the brief.

--depth=fast runs a single combined adversarial pass for a quick read; --depth=thorough runs all four passes in full.

Inputs

• Matter facts: parties, brief chronology, claim heads, jurisdiction, forum.
• Evidence references: documents, witness statements, expert reports — pointers to matter content, not re-uploaded.
• The strongest version of the case as the user sees it (the optimistic baseline).
• Optional: the counterparty's pleaded or anticipated defence.
• Optional: --depth=fast|thorough.

Step 1 — Permitted-use check (CPR 31.22 + privilege)

Before reading matter documents:

• The host workspace enforces the hard gate (matter-slug match against the proceedings reference, privilege posture). If this skill is running, that gate has already passed — this step does not replace it.
• Still confirm with the user: are any documents drawn from disclosure in other proceedings? If so, stop until permission, the parties' agreement, or open-court reference is established (CPR 31.22 implied undertaking).
• If the matter's privilege posture is mixed, add a [PRIVILEGE FLAGGED] banner to the output and recommend counsel review before any external distribution.

Failure-mode categories

The four Stage 3 passes specialise in the four ways UK civil cases lose.

Procedural

• Limitation expired or contested (Limitation Act 1980, s.5 / s.11 / s.14A).