/wage-hour-qa

1. Load ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/employment-legal/CLAUDE.md → jurisdictional footprint.
2. Use the workflow below.
3. Identify jurisdiction the question is about. If not specified, ask.
4. Answer per that jurisdiction's rule. Cite. Flag if it's a close call or law is shifting.

Matter context

Matter context. Check ## Matter workspaces in the practice-level CLAUDE.md. If Enabled is ✗ (the default for in-house users), skip the rest of this paragraph — skills use practice-level context and the matter machinery is invisible. If enabled and there is no active matter, ask: "Which matter is this for? Run /employment-legal:matter-workspace switch <slug> or say practice-level." Load the active matter's matter.md for matter-specific context and overrides. Write outputs to the matter folder at ~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/employment-legal/matters/<matter-slug>/. Never read another matter's files unless Cross-matter context is on.

Purpose

"It depends" is true but unhelpful. This skill produces a jurisdiction-specific answer grounded in researched, cited primary sources — and flags when the question is close enough to need human judgment. It does not state rules from memory: wage-and-hour thresholds, exemption criteria, and final-pay timing change frequently and vary meaningfully by state.

Load context

~/.claude/plugins/config/claude-for-legal/employment-legal/CLAUDE.md → jurisdictional footprint. If the question doesn't specify a jurisdiction, ask — or answer for the state with the most employees and note that.

The answer

Step 1: Jurisdiction

Which state/country is this about? If not stated:

• If it's about a specific employee: where do they work?
• If it's a policy question: identify the jurisdictions in the footprint that are most likely to be the most restrictive on the question at hand, then research those.

Step 2: Research the rule, then state it

Research before answering. For the jurisdiction and question, identify the currently operative rule. Cite the controlling primary source (statute, regulation, wage order, or case) with a pinpoint cite. Note the effective date and whether the rule has been recently amended, indexed, or is in litigation. If you are uncertain or cannot verify the current state of the law, say so and flag for attorney verification — do not state a rule you haven't confirmed.

State the rule in one paragraph, tied to the cite. Use your tools (web search, legal research integrations, team reference materials) to verify currency — especially for:

No silent supplement. If a research query to the configured legal research tool (Westlaw, CourtListener, or firm platform) returns few or no results for the jurisdiction-and-question, report what was found and stop. Do NOT fill the gap from web search or model knowledge without asking. Say: "The search returned [N] results from [tool]. Coverage appears thin for [jurisdiction / question]. Options: (1) broaden the search query, (2) try a different research tool, (3) search the web — results will be tagged [web search — verify] and should be checked against a primary source before relying, or (4) flag the question as unverified and stop here. Which would you like?" A lawyer decides whether to accept lower-confidence sources.

Source attribution. Tag every citation in the answer with where it came from: [Westlaw], [CourtListener], or the MCP tool name for citations retrieved from a legal research connector; [web search — verify] for web-search citations; [model knowledge — verify] for citations recalled from training data; [user provided] for citations the user supplied. Citations tagged verify carry higher fabrication risk and should be checked first. Never strip or collapse the tags.

• Salary thresholds for any exemption (federal and state — several states

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