What is a Skill?

If you have used AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT for legal work, you know the pattern: you type a prompt, get a response, refine it, and eventually land somewhere useful. The problem is that this process is improvised every time. The quality depends entirely on whoever is writing the prompt, and nothing is captured for next time.

A Skill changes that. It is a structured Markdown file that instructs an AI agent how to perform a specific legal task --- step by step, with the methodology baked in. Think of it as a playbook: the kind of checklist a senior associate would hand to a junior before reviewing an NDA or assessing a GDPR data subject request. Except instead of sitting in someone’s desk drawer, it runs inside your AI agent and produces consistent results every time.

Why Skills matter for legal work

Law firms run on institutional knowledge. A partner knows which clauses in a German employment contract tend to be unenforceable. A senior associate knows the five things to check before signing off on a share purchase agreement. That knowledge usually lives in people’s heads, and it walks out the door when they leave.

Skills capture that expertise in a format that any team member can apply immediately.

Consistency across the team. When every lawyer uses the same Skill to review a contract type, the analysis follows the same structure. Nothing gets skipped because someone forgot a step. The output is predictable and auditable.

Junior lawyers perform at a senior level. A first-year associate running a well-built Skill doesn’t need to remember every edge case in German limitation periods. The Skill walks the AI through each checkpoint. The associate still exercises judgment --- but the framework is there.

Risk reduction. Missed steps are where liability hides. A Skill that systematically checks penalty clauses, non-compete scope, and governing law provisions reduces the chance of something slipping through. It is a structured safety net.

Speed on routine analysis. Tasks that take a junior lawyer hours --- reviewing standard NDAs, checking data processing agreements against GDPR requirements, verifying GmbH formation documents --- take minutes when an AI agent follows a well-structured Skill.

How Skills differ from prompting

You might wonder: why not just write a good prompt? The difference is the same as between a one-off email and a documented procedure.

A prompt is a single instruction. It lives in a chat window, it is not version-controlled, and it varies every time someone writes it. Two lawyers on the same team will prompt differently and get different results.

A Skill is a reusable, versioned, peer-reviewed methodology. It is written once by an experienced lawyer, reviewed for accuracy, and improved over time. When a regulatory change affects the analysis --- say, a new court ruling on non-compete enforceability --- the Skill gets updated and every future use reflects that change.

Skills encode institutional knowledge. Prompts encode whatever the user remembers at that moment.

What is inside a Skill

Every Skill is a Markdown file with two parts: frontmatter (metadata) and body (the actual workflow).

---
title: NDA Review
category: contract-law
jurisdiction: [DE]
author: Konrad Abraham
version: 2026-03
---

## Overview
Analyzes non-disclosure agreements under German
law, covering confidentiality scope, term, penalty
provisions, and carve-outs.

## Steps
1. Identify the parties and contractual scope
2. Check the definition of confidential information
3. Verify the confidentiality term and survival clause
4. Flag non-standard or one-sided clauses
5. Assess penalty provisions under § 339 ff. BGB
6. Review permissible disclosure exceptions
7. Check governing law and jurisdiction

## FAQ
**What if the NDA is bilingual?**
Analyse both versions. Flag discrepancies between
the German and English text, noting which version
controls per the governing law clause.

The frontmatter defines metadata: what category of law the Skill covers, which jurisdictions it applies to, who authored it, and which version you are using. This makes Skills searchable, filterable, and traceable.

The body contains the workflow itself. The Overview explains what the Skill does and when to use it. The Steps section is the core --- a numbered sequence of instructions that the AI agent follows when analysing your document. The optional FAQ section addresses edge cases and common questions that arise during the task.

When you load a Skill into an AI agent, the agent reads these instructions and applies them to whatever document you provide. You upload an NDA, and the agent works through each step, flagging issues and producing structured output.

Quality and trust

Skills are not crowdsourced wiki entries. Every Skill published on Compound Law is authored by a licensed lawyer practising in the relevant jurisdiction. Before publication, each Skill goes through a review process for legal accuracy and practical completeness. Skills are versioned, so you always know which edition you are working with, and updates are tracked when the law changes.

Jurisdiction matters. A Skill for reviewing employment contracts under German law reflects BGB provisions, BAG case law, and standard market practice in Germany. It does not attempt to generalise across legal systems where the rules differ.

Not legal advice

Skills provide structured guidance for legal analysis. They are educational tools and workflow aids, not binding legal opinions. A Skill can help you identify issues, organise your review, and ensure completeness --- but the legal conclusions remain yours. Every matter has facts that require professional judgment, and no automated workflow replaces that responsibility.