How to use the Cease-and-Desist Letter Drafter agent skill

What the cease-desist skill makes the agent do

The skill is a file named SKILL.md. It tells an agent such as Claude Code how to handle a cease-and-desist letter in one of two modes. In send mode, the agent works through identifying the right being asserted, the infringing conduct, your relationship with the other party, and the demand. It then drafts a letter calibrated to a configured enforcement posture and stops at a review gate before anything is finalized.

In receive mode, the agent helps analyze a letter you were sent, identifies your exposure, lays out response options, and writes an options memo with a recommendation.

• Send mode: drafts an outgoing C&D and runs a pre-delivery gate.
• Receive mode: assesses an incoming letter and produces a triage memo with options and a recommendation.
• The skill is designed for legal teams that have configured the plugin's practice profile. It is not a substitute for attorney judgment.

Install the cease-desist skill

You can install the skill in either of two ways. Download the ZIP from the skill's page in this directory and unzip it into a skills folder. Use ~/.claude/skills/ to make it available across your projects, or a project's .claude/skills/ folder to limit it to one project.

Alternatively, upload the ZIP in the Claude apps under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

• Personal install: unzip into ~/.claude/skills/.
• Project install: unzip into the project's .claude/skills/ folder.
• App install: upload the ZIP under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

Complete the practice profile setup before first use

The skill reads your practice profile before it does anything. The profile is expected at ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/ip-legal/CLAUDE.md. If that file does not exist, or still contains [PLACEHOLDER] markers, the skill stops and asks you to run the setup interview.

The interview is run with /ip-legal:cold-start-interview. The skill depends on your enforcement posture, approval matrix, and practice-area mix, so the setup should be finished before you rely on the output.

How to trigger send mode and receive mode

You can invoke the skill with the slash command and a flag. Pass --send when you are asserting your rights. Pass --receive, followed by the path to the incoming letter, when you are defending against one. If you pass no flag, the skill asks once whether you are sending or receiving.

You can also make a natural request, such as asking the agent to draft a cease-and-desist for a competitor using your registered mark. The skill's description covers asserting rights with a demand letter and triaging an incoming C&D into an options memo, so phrasing your request in those terms helps the agent pick the right mode.

• Send: "Draft a cease-and-desist to a marketplace seller using our registered trademark."
• Receive: "Triage the cease-and-desist we received, at ~/Downloads/incoming-cd-acme.pdf."
• No flag: the agent asks whether you are asserting or defending.

Work through the send-mode steps

In send mode the agent asks for information in batches. For the right, it asks whether a trademark or copyright is registered and where. For the conduct, it asks who is infringing, what is copied or used, where it appears, since when, and what evidence exists. For the relationship, it asks whether the recipient is a competitor, a reseller, or a former licensee or partner.

Specific facts produce a stronger draft. The skill notes that a statement like a listing URL, a mark, and a date beats a general accusation of infringement.

• Registered rights are cited by number. Common-law rights get a first-use evidence paragraph.
• Unregistered US copyrights are flagged, because suit may require registration first.
• The agent does not finalize the letter until the review gate has run.

Understand the review gate and approvals

Before any final draft is written to disk in send mode, a gate runs. The skill pulls the approver for the C&D row from your practice profile's approval matrix and surfaces any automatic escalations in the gate. Do not expect the gate to be skipped.

The outgoing letter does not carry the work-product header. Internal drafts, pre-send briefs, and triage memos do.

• The approver comes from the approval matrix in your practice profile.
• Automatic escalations are shown at the gate.
• Non-lawyer users receive a one-page brief for the attorney conversation before the gate clears.

Safety notes: scripts, network, and limits

The skill runs no scripts and uses no network access. It does need read access to your local files if you point it at an incoming letter, such as a PDF path. It also needs citator access to verify [CITE:___] references before a draft is finalized. The skill references this requirement but does not specify which citator to use.

Trademark rights are territorial. The draft assumes the jurisdictions declared in your practice profile. If the conduct, counterparty, or forum is elsewhere, the agent flags it and the draft may not apply as written. Sending a C&D is a first step toward litigation, and the recipient can file a declaratory judgment action or raise bad-faith claims, so the skill is built around attorney review.

• Runs scripts: no.
• Uses network: no.
• Needs read access to incoming letter files in receive mode.
• Citator access is needed to verify [CITE:___] references.