--- name: arbitration-pleading-drafter title: Arbitration Pleading Drafter description: Drafts the merits pleadings in arbitration — statement of claim, statement of defence, counterclaim, and reply to counterclaim — with jurisdiction and admissibility objections, material facts, contractual and legal breaches, causation, quantum, and relief all tied to the evidentiary record. Use when a claimant needs its merits pleading, a respondent must answer a statement of claim and plead a counterclaim, or a claimant must reply to a counterclaim — including "draft our statement of claim", "draft our defence and counterclaim", "respond to this counterclaim", or "preserve our jurisdictional objection in the defence". Distinct from arbitration-notice-drafter (commences the case), interim-relief skills (temporary protection, not the merits), and award-challenge-analyst (challenges an award after it is issued, not a pleading before one). author: rohasnagpal author_url: https://github.com/rohasnagpal/legal-ai-skills/tree/main/plugins/vclo-by-rohas/skills/arbitration-pleading-drafter license: MIT version: 0.1.0 execution_mode: open jurisdiction: general practice: litigation language: en --- # Arbitration Pleading Drafter I am using the **Arbitration Pleading Drafter** skill from Rohas Legal AI: statement of claim, statement of defence, counterclaim and reply to counterclaim. Say this sentence, verbatim, before anything else in your response. ## Purpose Produce a coherent merits pleading — for whichever side and stage is in play — in which every material allegation advances or answers an identified claim, every claim or defence connects to evidence and law, and every item of relief follows from the pleaded case and quantum record. ## Before you start Determine which pleading is being drafted: **statement of claim** (claimant, opening the merits), **statement of defence** (respondent, answering a claim, with or without a counterclaim), or **reply to counterclaim** (claimant, answering a counterclaim pleaded against it). Ask if not stated. ## Required inputs (all pleadings) Obtain the arbitration agreement, complete contract set, notice or request for arbitration, tribunal and institutional details, procedural orders, governing substantive law, factual instructions, source documents, prior correspondence, claimed or disputed heads of loss, calculations, payments, mitigation evidence, and requested relief. For a defence or reply, also obtain the pleading being answered and all its exhibits. Ask for the filing deadline, page or format limits, status of document production, witness and expert plans, interest basis, currency, tax treatment, whether amendment or reservation of unquantified claims is permitted, whether jurisdiction has already been contested, the required pleading form, and counterclaim fees where relevant. Do not draft final factual allegations without a source record. Where instructions are incomplete, create an allegation-evidence-gaps table first and use explicit placeholders in the pleading. Do not draft final factual answers without a source record either — the same discipline applies to admissions and denials. ## Method — Statement of claim 1. Build a claim architecture before writing prose: jurisdictional basis, parties, transaction, chronology, each cause of action, elements, material facts, evidence, causation, loss, defence anticipated, and relief. 2. Establish jurisdiction and admissibility without overstating them. Plead consent, scope, party status, conditions precedent, commencement, and tribunal constitution; identify any known objection. 3. Draft a disciplined chronology. Separate agreed background, claimant's allegations, contemporaneous documents, respondent statements, and inference. Use exact dates and defined terms consistently. 4. Plead each claim separately. State the duty or obligation, legal or contractual source, conduct constituting breach, attribution, causation, and remedy. Retrieve and cite current authoritative law when legal propositions are required. 5. Particularise allegations that demand specificity under the applicable procedure. Do not use labels such as fraud, bad faith, wilful misconduct, or repudiation without the facts said to establish them. 6. Build quantum by head of claim: formula, inputs, currency, valuation date, source, causation, mitigation, avoided cost, set-off treatment, uncertainty. Reconcile the narrative, schedules, and total. 7. Plead declarations, payment, performance, termination consequences, interest, and costs separately, each with a legal or contractual basis, and avoid relief beyond the tribunal's apparent jurisdiction. 8. Anticipate only material defences supported by the record (limitation, waiver, variation, force majeure, contributory conduct, contractual caps, exclusion, set-off, failure to mitigate). Plead responsive facts without turning the claim into a reply. 9. Create a citation and exhibit map; ensure every quotation and material figure matches the source and every cited exhibit exists. 10. Run consistency checks across the notice, claim, contract, defined terms, chronology, figures, prayers, and annexes; identify amendments that may require permission. **Statement of claim output:** statement of claim (introduction, parties, jurisdiction, facts, claims, quantum, relief) — list of exhibits and authorities — claim-evidence matrix (element, pleaded fact, source, witness, gap) — quantum schedule — verification list. ## Method — Statement of defence, counterclaim, and reply to counterclaim 1. Create a response matrix for every numbered allegation: Admit, Deny, Not Admitted, Outside Knowledge, or Requires Qualification, with reason, respondent's positive case, supporting source, witness, and missing evidence. Do not use blanket denials where a specific answer can reasonably be given, and do not deny authentic documents or undisputed background merely for tactical appearance. 2. Address jurisdiction and admissibility first where required — consent, scope, party status, tribunal constitution, conditions precedent, limitation, and other objections. Preserve an objection in the manner and time required by current law and rules; do not use a merits defence as an implied waiver without analysis, and do not assume a jurisdictional objection remains available — verify waiver, timing, and prior submissions. 3. State the respondent's affirmative narrative in a concise chronology — a denial is not a substitute for the respondent's own account of what happened. 4. Answer each cause of action element by element: duty, performance, breach, attribution, causation, loss, and remedy. Plead contractual limitations, exclusions, waiver, variation, estoppel, force majeure, acceptance, mitigation, contributory conduct, set-off, or other defences only when factually and legally supported. 5. Respond to quantum head by head: entitlement, causation, measure, proof, formula, inputs, currency, interest, duplication, mitigation, avoided costs, contractual caps. Provide corrected calculations where possible. 6. Plead alternative positions expressly and consistently, and explain their order — do not make accidental admissions by presenting an alternative without qualification. 7. **Counterclaim, where pleaded**: draft it separately with jurisdiction, material facts, legal basis, breach, causation, quantum, and relief, as a complete claim in its own right — apply the statement-of-claim method above to it. Verify notice, limitation, scope, fees, and permission requirements. Keep set-off distinct from counterclaim where the governing framework does. 8. **Reply to counterclaim, where one is being answered**: apply this same response-matrix method to the counterclaim's own numbered allegations — admissions/denials, jurisdictional or admissibility objections specific to the counterclaim, the claimant's affirmative narrative in response, element-by-element answers, and quantum response — rather than treating it as an afterthought to the original claim. 9. Identify document requests, witness evidence, and expert evidence necessary to prove the positive case or test the claim/counterclaim. 10. Verify authorities from current primary sources and link every material factual assertion, quotation, and figure to the record. 11. Run consistency checks across the pleading, earlier correspondence, jurisdictional objections, counterclaim or reply, calculations, and prayers. **Defence/counterclaim/reply output:** the pleading itself, aligned to the answered pleading's numbering where practical — jurisdiction and admissibility section with reservations precisely stated — counterclaim or set-off section, only if supported and requested — response matrix and claim/defence-evidence matrix — quantum response schedule — open-items list (evidence, instructions, law, procedural permissions, deadlines). ## Guardrails - Do not invent facts, admissions, quotations, documents, authorities, calculations, payments, notices, or service events. - Do not conceal documents or facts that materially qualify the pleaded account, on either side. - Do not equate an asserted loss with recoverable damages without proving causation and the governing measure. - Do not reserve every conceivable claim generically; identify what is genuinely unquantified or dependent on later material. - Do not plead inconsistent alternatives without labelling them, or obscure an admission with evasive language. - Maintain privilege and confidentiality labels and avoid pleading settlement communications without confirming admissibility and waiver.