A skill your agent uses when verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review "preemption check" run across SSRN, Westlaw/Lexis, HeinOnline, and Google…

MITAuto-check passedResearch & Science

Install Hlr Preemption Check

skills CLI
$ npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill hlr-preemption-check -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills hlr-preemption-check --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/Harvard-Law-Review-Skills/skills/hlr-preemption-check .claude/skills/hlr-preemption-check && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
hlr-preemption-check
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.5k tokens
SKILL.md length
721 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
2,387
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review "preemption check" run across SSRN, Westlaw/Lexis, HeinOnline, and Google…

  • Works in 5 steps: Search the claim, not just the topic.… → Vary vocabulary. Authors name the same… → Date-bound and re-run. Restrict to the… → …
  • Verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review preemption check run across SSRN
  • SKILL.md covers When to trigger, Where to search (run all four;…, How to search well and Reading the result (three…, plus 6 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Hlr Preemption Check is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review "preemption check" run across SSRN, Westlaw/Lexis, HeinOnline, and Google Scholar BEFORE drafting. Confirms originality and refines the claim; it does not draft the thesis (hlr-thesis-and-contribution) or the literature engagement in the body.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.5k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Research & Science, covering Essays and academic help and Academic paper search. The repository describes itself as: Journal-specific Claude Code/Codex skill packs covering mainstream journals — AER, QJE, Nature, Cell, 管理世界, 经济研究 & 200+ more — your fast track to getting published. | 覆盖主流期刊的… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review preemption check run across SSRN
  • Google Scholar BEFORE drafting

Example prompts

  • “preemption check”
  • “/hlr-preemption-check”

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Search the claim, not just the topic. Anyone can find articles on "qualified immunity"; search the
  2. Vary vocabulary. Authors name the same idea differently; run synonyms and the doctrinal terms of
  3. Date-bound and re-run. Restrict to the last 2-3 years for in-press risk, then re-run the search
  4. Follow the citation web. When you find the nearest neighbor, read what it cites and what cites it.
  5. Read the abstracts and intros, not just titles — preemption hides in the framing, not the keyword.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 932eb23. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Hlr Preemption Check loads about 1.5k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 92 tokens; SKILL.md has 721 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~92
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.5k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills at commit 932eb23, republished under its MIT licence (© brycewang-stanford). 721 words, ~1,511 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/hlr-preemption-check/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
hlr-preemption-check
description
Use when verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review "preemption check" run across SSRN, Westlaw/Lexis, HeinOnline, and Google Scholar BEFORE drafting. Confirms originality and refines the claim; it does not draft the thesis (hlr-thesis-and-contribution) or the literature engagement in the body.

Preemption Check (hlr-preemption-check)

In legal scholarship, "preemption" means: has someone already published your argument? Running this search before you write is the single highest-return habit in the field — discovering that your claim appeared in a 2024 article after you have drafted 25,000 words is the classic wasted summer. A clean preemption check both protects originality and sharpens your contribution against the nearest prior work.

When to trigger

  • You have a candidate thesis and have not yet written the body
  • You are about to claim "no one has argued X" or "first to address Y"
  • A draft is done and you want to confirm nothing close appeared while you wrote
  • An editor or colleague says "isn't this just [Author]'s point?"

Where to search (run all four; do not stop at one)

SourceWhat it catchesNote
SSRN / bepressWorking papers and forthcoming articles not yet in printCatches the most recent, still-in-press work — the highest preemption risk
Westlaw / Lexis journals databasesPublished law-review articles, full textUse field-restricted and date-restricted queries
HeinOnlineDeep historical law-review archive, PDF page imagesBest for older and exact-pinpoint history of an idea
Google ScholarCross-disciplinary and gray-literature reachCatches non-law work and citation chains

How to search well

  1. Search the claim, not just the topic. Anyone can find articles on "qualified immunity"; search the specific move — e.g., "qualified immunity" + "common-law indemnification" + your distinctive hook.
  2. Vary vocabulary. Authors name the same idea differently; run synonyms and the doctrinal terms of art, not only your coinage.
  3. Date-bound and re-run. Restrict to the last 2-3 years for in-press risk, then re-run the search right before submission — SSRN updates daily during the seasons.
  4. Follow the citation web. When you find the nearest neighbor, read what it cites and what cites it.
  5. Read the abstracts and intros, not just titles — preemption hides in the framing, not the keyword.

Reading the result (three outcomes)

  • Genuinely new → state originality precisely and cite the nearest neighbors as the literature you advance (hand to hlr-argument-structure for engagement).
  • Partially preempted → refine the claim to the part that remains open; recast the contribution ("prior work shows A; this piece shows the stronger/different B"). Loop hlr-thesis-and-contribution.
  • Fully preempted → change the claim or the angle before investing in the draft. Better now than after.

Checklist

  • Searched SSRN, Westlaw/Lexis, HeinOnline, and Google Scholar — not just one
  • Searched the specific argument, with synonyms and terms of art, not only the topic
  • Found and read the 3-5 nearest-neighbor pieces (intros + abstracts)
  • Stated exactly how the claim differs from each nearest neighbor
  • Date-restricted pass for in-press work; plan to re-run before submission
  • Any "first to" language is backed by the search, or removed
Show full SKILL.md (275 more words)Show less

Anti-patterns

  • Searching only the topic ("free speech") instead of the argument — everything looks preempted or nothing does
  • Relying on a single database (especially skipping SSRN, where in-press preemption lives)
  • Searching once, months before submission, and never re-running
  • Hiding the nearest competitor instead of citing and distinguishing it
  • Keeping a "first to address" claim the search cannot support

Preemption is not the same as the literature review

A preemption check protects originality: has this argument been published? The literature review in the body does different work — it situates the claim among the scholarship a generalist editor expects you to engage (handled inside hlr-argument-structure). The same searches feed both: the nearest neighbors you find here become the works you distinguish in the body. Do not let a clean preemption result excuse a thin literature engagement, and do not let a thorough literature review substitute for the targeted, claim-level preemption search — they answer different questions.

Worked micro-pattern (illustrative)

A hypothetical author plans to argue that a doctrine D should be abolished. A topic-level search for "D" returns hundreds of hits and feels hopeless. Re-running the search at the argument level — "D" + "abolition" + the distinctive ground the author relies on — surfaces only two close pieces: one argues for narrowing D (not abolishing it), the other abolishes D on different grounds. The verdict is partially preempted: the claim survives, recast as "prior work narrows D or abolishes it on ground X; this Article abolishes it on the stronger ground Y." The contribution is now sharper because of the search. (Counts and grounds illustrative.)

Output format

【Claim searched】the specific argument (not the topic)
【Databases】SSRN / Westlaw-Lexis / HeinOnline / Scholar [all run? Y/N]
【Nearest neighbors】the 3-5 closest pieces (author, year, the move they make)
【Verdict】new / partially preempted / preempted
【Refinement】how the claim now differs from each neighbor
【Next】hlr-argument-structure (if new) or hlr-thesis-and-contribution (if recast)

Supplementary resources

© brycewang-stanford, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in Harvard-Law-Review-Skills/skills/hlr-preemption-check of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

Compare with similar skills

Hlr Preemption Check next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Hlr Preemption Check compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Hlr Preemption Check this skillbrycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills1.2k—~1.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Professor Fit Analyzervoidful/academic-skills135—~13kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Autonomous Researchfedericodeponte/opendraft507—~8.2kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Academic Research CompanionGRCEngClub/claude-grc-engineering419—~2.2kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
Oleafly Review ManuscriptOleafly/Oleafly212—~2.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Superlearnraiyanyahya/Superlearn122—~6.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

Similar skills

  • Professor Fit Analyzer

    voidful/academic-skills

    analyze a professor from google scholar, publication lists, personal websites, lab pages, and field-specific bibliographic databases (e.g., DBLP, PubMed, SSRN, PhilPapers, MathSciNet, arXiv, Scopus)…

    135 GitHub stars~13k tokensUpdated 6 mo ago
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Autonomous Research

    federicodeponte/opendraft

    An 18-agent pipeline that turns one topic line into a drafted research paper, literature review, or thesis chapter.

    507 GitHub stars~8.2k tokensUpdated 9 days ago
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Academic Research Companion

    GRCEngClub/claude-grc-engineering

    Guide a research project through the full academic lifecycle — from raw idea to concrete research question, literature grounding, methodology, writing, feedback, and publication.

    419 GitHub stars~2.2k tokensUpdated 7 days ago
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Run a referee-grade review of the manuscript in the open project without changing a single manuscript file.

    212 GitHub stars~2.3k tokensUpdated yesterday
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Superlearn

    raiyanyahya/Superlearn

    Build an interactive learning board on any topic. An agent skill from raiyanyahya/Superlearn.

    122 GitHub stars~6.2k tokensUpdated 1 mo ago
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed
  • Publish Research Site

    agentara/skills

    Turn a thesis, proposition, trend, question, or explainer topic into a citation-backed, image-rich, interactive website and deploy it with Vercel CLI.

    603 GitHub stars~1.9k tokensUpdated 11 days ago
    Research & ScienceAuto-check passed

More from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

All 2,387 skills in this repo
  • Aaag Data Analysis

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when running and reporting the analysis for an Annals of the American Association of Geographers manuscript — spatial statistics and modeling, remote-sensing accuracy, or…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.3k tokensUpdated 14 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Literature Positioning

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when positioning an Annals of the American Association of Geographers manuscript in the literature — engaging geographic scholarship across the relevant area and the…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.3k tokensUpdated 14 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Rebuttal

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when responding to an Annals of the American Association of Geographers decision letter (major/minor revision) — building a point-by-point response to the subject editor and…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.4k tokensUpdated 14 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Research Design

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when defending the research design of an Annals of the American Association of Geographers manuscript — spatial/quantitative analysis and GIScience, remote-sensing and…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.4k tokensUpdated 14 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Review Process

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when you need to understand how the Annals of the American Association of Geographers evaluates a manuscript — double-anonymous review routed through a subject editor by…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.3k tokensUpdated 14 days ago
    Auto-check passed
  • Aaag Submission

    brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

    A skill your agent uses when running the final pre-submission preflight for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers via ScholarOne Manuscripts — area/article-type selection…

    1.2k GitHub stars~1.6k tokensUpdated 14 days ago
    Auto-check passed

Questions about Hlr Preemption Check

What does Hlr Preemption Check do?

A skill your agent uses when verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review "preemption check" run across SSRN, Westlaw/Lexis, HeinOnline, and Google…. Hlr Preemption Check is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review "preemption check" run across SSRN, Westlaw/Lexis, HeinOnline, and Google Scholar BEFORE drafting.

When should I use Hlr Preemption Check?

Hlr Preemption Check fits situations like: verifying that a Harvard Law Review (HLR) argument has not already been made — the law-review preemption check run across SSRN; google Scholar BEFORE drafting.

How do I install Hlr Preemption Check in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill hlr-preemption-check -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (Harvard-Law-Review-Skills/skills/hlr-preemption-check in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .claude/skills/hlr-preemption-check in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Hlr Preemption Check in Codex?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill hlr-preemption-check -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (Harvard-Law-Review-Skills/skills/hlr-preemption-check in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .agents/skills/hlr-preemption-check in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Hlr Preemption Check in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill hlr-preemption-check -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/hlr-preemption-check, .gemini/skills/hlr-preemption-check, .github/skills/hlr-preemption-check and .opencode/skills/hlr-preemption-check in your project.

What does Hlr Preemption Check need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Hlr Preemption Check is instructions for the agent only.

Does Hlr Preemption Check access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Hlr Preemption Check safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Hlr Preemption Check use?

Hlr Preemption Check is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Hlr Preemption Check use?

About 1.5k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Hlr Preemption Check?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Hlr Preemption Check: Professor Fit Analyzer (voidful/academic-skills, 135 stars), Autonomous Research (federicodeponte/opendraft, 507 stars), Academic Research Companion (GRCEngClub/claude-grc-engineering, 419 stars) and Oleafly Review Manuscript (Oleafly/Oleafly, 212 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Hlr Preemption Check?

brycewang-stanford (a GitHub user) maintains it in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, which has 1,231 GitHub stars. The repository holds 2,387 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 27, 2026.

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.