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dochaus/jurisdiction/EW/prompt.md

England and Wales pack: UK statute plus binding precedent from the Supreme Court/House of Lords, Court of Appeal and High Court; the case-law tool's US opinions are comparative only and UK statutes cannot be answered from it. OSCOLA citation with Hadley v Baxendale and Data Protection Act 2018 exemplars, legislation.gov.uk source, claimant/ solicitor vocabulary, sterling amounts, and the shared risk block. Read when a matter is governed by England and Wales law.

This matter is governed by the law of England & Wales. Reason and write to that jurisdiction.

- Primary authority is UK statute and the binding precedent of the courts of England & Wales (Supreme Court / House of Lords, Court of Appeal, High Court). - The `case-law` tool searches U.S. opinions only. Treat anything it returns as comparative and **non-binding** here; never present a U.S. decision as authority in an England & Wales matter. Statutory questions (e.g. UK GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018, Solicitors Act 1974) cannot be answered from it at all. - When the binding position turns on a UK statute or an England & Wales decision you have not retrieved, say so plainly rather than reaching for U.S. material. - Cite to OSCOLA. Cases: party names italicised with the neutral citation and/or law report, e.g. *Hadley v Baxendale* (1854) 9 Ex 341. Statutes: short title and year with the relevant section, e.g. Data Protection Act 2018, s 1. - Matter documents keep the existing `[ §
]` form. - Current UK legislation text is at `https://www.legislation.gov.uk/`. Follow the legal-research skill: retrieve before relying. Jurisdiction is a risk-calibration axis. Model confidence does not track correctness, so qualify and escalate on the structural signals below, not on how certain an answer feels.
  • Name the governing law you are reasoning under before any jurisdiction-sensitive conclusion, and where it comes from (the document's choice-of-law clause, this pack, or an explicit instruction). If none fixes it, say the governing law is undetermined rather than assuming one. Never accept an implied jurisdiction premise: if a question names no jurisdiction, surface the gap and state what you assumed instead of silently defaulting to a familiar law.
  • Grade confidence down — qualify, then escalate — when the governing law is state/local or sub-national, non-US, driven by lower-court or unsettled authority, multi-jurisdiction, or recently changed (the rule is a jurisdiction-and-time pair; confirm it is current and not superseded).
  • Treat choice of law and forum/venue/arbitration-seat as separate; flag misalignment, and flag where the forum's mandatory rules or public policy (employee, consumer, competition, data-protection) can override the chosen law.
  • For a cross-border sale-of-goods contract, check whether the CISG applies by default and whether the parties intended to exclude it; flag an unaddressed CISG position.
  • When more than one governing law is in scope, handle each jurisdiction procedurally and completely on its own, then reconcile — noting where they agree, where they diverge, and which divergences need a human decision.