# Bankruptcy and Restructuring Cold-Start Interview > Use when a bankruptcy and restructuring practice group is adopting AgentCounsel and needs to configure its practice profile by answering a structured interview covering jurisdictions, client context, escalation thresholds, output preferences, source documents, standard positions, review requirements, and prohibited assumptions. - Skill: `zgbrenner/bankruptcy-and-restructuring-cold-start-interview` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add zgbrenner/bankruptcy-and-restructuring-cold-start-interview` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/zgbrenner/bankruptcy-and-restructuring-cold-start-interview/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: zgbrenner (https://skillmd.com/u/zgbrenner) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/zgbrenner/bankruptcy-and-restructuring-cold-start-interview --- # Bankruptcy and Restructuring Cold-Start Interview ## Purpose Conduct a structured, staged interview with a bankruptcy and restructuring practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate `practice-profiles/bankruptcy-restructuring.md`. The skill walks through all eight profile fields in sequence, records every answer, and assembles a filled draft of the profile for the practice group's review and approval. It produces draft legal work product for attorney review — not legal advice and not a final configuration. ## Use When - A team is adopting AgentCounsel and needs to configure `practice-profiles/bankruptcy-restructuring.md` for the first time. - A bankruptcy and restructuring practice group is being onboarded to the library and no current profile exists. - The library is being stood up for the first time and the bankruptcy and restructuring area is included in scope. - A practice group wishes to revisit or rebuild its profile from scratch rather than make incremental updates. ## Required Inputs - A knowledgeable person from the bankruptcy and restructuring practice group — a supervising attorney or an authorized designee — who can answer questions about the group's jurisdiction, positions, escalation rules, and review requirements. - Any existing playbooks, templates, source-of-truth documents, or standard-form documents the group already uses, so they can be referenced or cited in the profile. ## Do Not Use When - The group is actively working a live bankruptcy and restructuring matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter. - A `practice-profiles/bankruptcy-restructuring.md` already exists and is current. In that case this is a refresh, not a cold start — though the skill may still be used to rebuild the profile deliberately. - No authorized person is available to answer. Do not complete the interview with guessed or inferred answers; record all gaps as `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholders. - The purpose is to handle a specific bankruptcy and restructuring matter (use the appropriate matter-level skill for that task). ## Legal Safety Rules - Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice. - Never guess or infer an answer to any interview question. If the interviewee cannot answer a question, record `[CONFIRM: answer required from practice group]` and move on. - The filled profile is a draft. It must be reviewed and explicitly approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it governs any AgentCounsel work product. - Do not invent standard positions, clause preferences, escalation thresholds, or review rules. Record only what the interviewee provides. - Do not include client-specific facts, client names, matter identifiers, or privileged details in the profile. The profile is a reusable group-level configuration, not a matter record. - Do not state or imply that any threshold, position, or rule in the profile satisfies a legal requirement under any jurisdiction. Jurisdiction-specific legal obligations are for the attorney to verify. - Flag every item the interviewee defers or leaves open with a visible `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholder so the reviewer can see exactly what is unresolved. ## Workflow **Stage 1 — Jurisdictions** Ask the interviewee: - In which bankruptcy courts (federal districts, divisions) does the group practice most frequently? - Does the group regularly engage with cross-border restructurings (Chapter 15, CCAA, UK schemes, others), and which regimes drive most of that work? - Does the group handle state-law restructuring tools — assignments for the benefit of creditors, receiverships — and in which jurisdictions? - Are there sector-specific bankruptcy regimes (healthcare, financial institution, municipal Chapter 9) the group regularly engages with? - Are there jurisdictions or sectors the group treats as out of scope, requiring specialist outside counsel? Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: jurisdiction not yet specified]`. **Stage 2 — Client and Team Context** Ask the interviewee: - Does the group represent primarily debtors, creditors (secured / unsecured / trade / equity / bondholder), committees, plan sponsors, or a mix? - What types of bankruptcy and restructuring matters does the group handle most frequently — pre-petition advisory, Chapter 11 / 7 / 15 cases, out-of-court restructurings, distressed-asset acquisitions, plan negotiation, litigation within bankruptcy? - How is the team structured — partners, associates, financial-restructuring specialists, claims-handling paralegals? - How does the group coordinate with financial advisors, investment bankers, claims agents, and trustees? - Are there client categories — first-lien holders, DIP lenders, equity sponsors, indenture trustees — that require special handling? Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: client/team context not yet specified]`. **Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds** Ask the interviewee: - Which matters automatically require escalation — petition filing, first-day motions, DIP / cash-collateral, plan negotiation, section 363 sale, preference / fraudulent transfer, substantive consolidation, cross-border filing? - Are there transaction-value or claim-amount thresholds that trigger escalation? - When does an avoidance-action analysis (preference, fraudulent transfer, equitable subordination, recharacterization) require partner-level involvement? - Which engagement types — committee representation, professional retention, fee-application work — require attorney review regardless of size? - Who is the designated escalation contact for bankruptcy matters, and what is the expected turnaround? Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: escalation threshold not yet specified]`. **Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style** Ask the interviewee: - Should bankruptcy work product default to memo format, deadline-tracker format, claim-analysis format, or pleading-draft format? - What level of detail does the practice group expect — executive summary, full citation-supported analysis, both layered? - Are there house style rules for citation format, deadline flagging, or claim categorization in bankruptcy work product? - Does the group produce closing-checklist drafts, first-day-motion summaries, or claim-analysis dashboards in standard formats? - Are there particular deliverable types — first-day declarations, disclosure statements, plans of reorganization — for which the group has mandatory format requirements? Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: output style preference not yet specified]`. **Stage 5 — Source-of-Truth Documents** Ask the interviewee: - What is the group's authoritative bankruptcy-precedent library (first-day motions, plans, disclosure statements), and where is it stored? - Is there a deadline-tracker spreadsheet or system for bankruptcy cases, and how is it kept current? - What document governs the group's claim-analysis framework — categories, evidentiary standards, treatment recommendations? - Are there sample DIP / cash-collateral / 363-sale motion libraries the group treats as authoritative? - Does the group maintain a court-specific reference (local rules, judge preferences, district customs) for the bankruptcy courts where it appears? Record answers and document names. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: source document not yet identified]`. **Stage 6 — Standard Positions and Playbooks** Ask the interviewee: - What is the group's default cash-collateral / DIP posture — common protections demanded, common objections raised? - What is the group's default DIP-lender-protection framework — adequate protection, replacement liens, super-priority, carve-outs? - What is the group's default preference-defense framework — analyzing ordinary-course-of-business, new value, and contemporaneous-exchange defenses? - What is the group's default substantive-consolidation posture? - What is the group's default approach to plan-feasibility analysis and confirmation? Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: standard position not yet specified]`. **Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements** Ask the interviewee: - At what stage does attorney review of bankruptcy work product become mandatory — pre-petition advisory, filing stage, first-day motion stage, plan / disclosure-statement stage, distribution stage? - Are there work-product types for which attorney review is always required regardless of size — any petition, any first-day motion, any plan, any preference complaint, any 363 motion? - What is the designated reviewer's role — handling attorney, supervising bankruptcy partner, specialty partner for cross-border or sector matters? - What is the expected turnaround for standard bankruptcy review, and how are urgent reviews (first-day filings, emergency motions) handled? - Is there a formal sign-off step before any court filing or distribution event? Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: review requirement not yet specified]`. **Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions** Ask the interviewee: - Are there facts agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — that a deadline applies, that a claim is valid, that a transfer is non-preferential, that automatic stay protects, that an order has been entered? - Are there bankruptcy-specific risks — fraudulent-transfer, preference, equitable subordination, judicial-estoppel, stay-violation, fee-objection — where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently? - Are there matter types where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement — committee work, cross-border filings, sector-specific bankruptcies (healthcare, financial institution)? - Are there prior incidents — adverse rulings, sanctions, professional-conduct findings — that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on bankruptcy matters? Record answers. Mark any unanswered item `[CONFIRM: prohibited assumption not yet specified]`. **Stage 9 — Assemble the Draft Profile** Compile all answers into a filled draft of `practice-profiles/bankruptcy-restructuring.md`, populating each of the eight profile sections. For every item that was not answered, insert a visible `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholder with enough context for the reviewer to understand what needs to be supplied. Append a list of all open placeholders so the reviewing attorney can see at a glance what remains unresolved. ## Output Format Deliver: 1. **Filled draft of `practice-profiles/bankruptcy-restructuring.md`** — all eight sections populated with answers from the interview. Every unanswered item is a visible `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholder. 2. **Open-items list** — an explicit enumeration of every placeholder inserted, with the stage and question it corresponds to, so the reviewing attorney can resolve them efficiently. Label the entire output: **Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice. This profile draft must be reviewed and approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it is relied upon.** ## Attorney Verification Checklist - [ ] All eight profile sections have been reviewed by a supervising attorney or authorized practice-group representative. - [ ] Court coverage and judge-specific local-rule references are accurately recorded. - [ ] Deadline-tracker reference is current and maintenance owner is named — every deadline in a related deliverable must be marked `[deadline verification required]`. - [ ] Cash-collateral / DIP / preference-defense defaults reflect the group's current considered practice. - [ ] Cross-border restructuring posture is current `[Verify current law]`. - [ ] Conflicts and retention frameworks reflect applicable professional-conduct rules `[ATTORNEY TO CONFIRM]`. - [ ] No client-specific facts, matter identifiers, or privileged details appear in the profile. - [ ] All `[CONFIRM: ...]` placeholders have been resolved or explicitly accepted as pending. - [ ] The approved profile has been saved to `practice-profiles/bankruptcy-restructuring.md` and its effective date recorded. - [ ] A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.