legal-risk-assessment

The legal-risk-assessment skill helps in-house legal teams evaluate and classify legal risks using a structured severity-by-likelihood framework. It is designed to support consistent risk identification and documentation during contract reviews, deal assessments, issue triage, and escalation workflows. By applying standardized scoring criteria, the skill enables teams to prioritize legal concerns based on potential business impact and probability of occurrence. The framework is intended to improve visibility into legal exposure and support informed decision-making while emphasizing that final assessments should be reviewed by qualified legal professionals.

The skill provides a detailed risk matrix that combines severity and likelihood ratings into a quantified risk score. It defines five levels for both severity and likelihood, ranging from negligible to critical and remote to almost certain. Based on the resulting score, risks are classified into categories such as low, medium, high, or critical risk, each associated with recommended actions like monitoring, documentation, escalation, or acceptance. The framework also includes a visual matrix representation and guidance for determining when senior counsel or outside legal review may be appropriate.

Typical use cases include evaluating contractual obligations, assessing operational or regulatory exposure, prioritizing legal review queues, and documenting risk decisions within an organization. The skill is particularly useful for in-house counsel, legal operations professionals, compliance teams, procurement stakeholders, and business units that need a repeatable process for identifying and communicating legal risks. Organizations can further adapt the framework to align with their own industry requirements and risk tolerance.