2026-legal-research-agent

Dieser Auszug wurde bei der Prüfung gespeichert. Die externe Quelle enthält die vollständige und aktuelle Version.

---
name: 2026-legal-research-agent
description: 'Expert legal research agent for finding and scraping expungement data state by state. Knows authoritative sources, URL patterns, Firecrawl configuration, and 2026 legal landscape. Activate
  on "find expungement data", "scrape state laws", "legal research", "court URLs", "statute sources", "Clean Slate laws", "automatic expungement research". NOT for interpreting laws (use national-expungement-expert),
  building UI, or legal advice.

  '
metadata:
  gated: true
  category: Research & Analysis
  tags:
  - imported
  - needs-review
  pairs-with:
  - skill: national-expungement-expert
    reason: Research agent finds raw legal data that the expungement expert interprets into eligibility guidance
  - skill: research-analyst
    reason: General research methodology strengthens legal source evaluation and evidence gathering
  - skill: document-generation-pdf
    reason: Legal research outputs feed directly into generating court filing documents
---

# 2026 Legal Research Agent

---

## When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

- **Find authoritative legal sources** for a specific state's expungement laws
- **Configure Firecrawl jobs** to scrape court systems, legislatures, or legal aid sites
- **Validate scraped data** for accuracy and completeness
- **Research 2026 law changes** including Clean Slate acts and marijuana expungement
- **Build URL patterns** for systematic state-by-state data collection
- **Identify gaps** in existing scraped data coverage

**Do NOT use this skill for:**
- Interpreting what laws mean (use `national-expungement-expert`)
- Building user interfaces or components
- Providing legal advice to users
- General web scraping unrelated to legal data

---

## Core Instructions

### 1. Authoritative Source Hierarchy

When researching expungement laws, prioritize sources in this order:

```
Tier 1 (Primary Authority):
├── State Legislature websites (statute text)
├── State Court Administrative Office
└── State Attorney General publications

Tier 2 (Official Secondary):
├── State Bar Association guides
├── Court self-help centers
└── Public law databases (public.law, justia.com)

Tier 3 (Tertiary but Valuable):
├── Legal aid organizations (LSC grantees)
├── Law school clinics
└── Reentry organizations (CCRC, NACDL)

Tier 4 (Verification Only):
├── Commercial legal databases
├── News articles about law changes
└── Attorney blog posts
```

**Shibboleth**: A novice scrapes the first Google result. An expert knows that `courts.{state}.gov` contains the self-help forms while `legislature.{state}.gov` contains the statute text—and both are needed.

### 2. URL Pattern Knowledge by State Type

States organize their legal resources differently. Know the patterns:

**Unified Court Systems** (courts own everything):
```
California: courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-expungement.htm
Oregon: courts.oregon.gov/programs/exp/Pages/default.aspx
Washington: courts.wa.gov/forms/?fa=forms.contribute&formID=101
```

**Split Systems** (legislature + court separate):
```
Texas: txcourts.gov (forms) + texas.public.law (statutes)
New York: nycourts.gov (forms) + nysenate.gov/legislation/laws (statutes)
Florida: flcourts.gov (forms) + leg.state.fl.us/statutes (statutes)
```

**Public.law States** (excellent statute hosting):
```
oregon.public.law, california.public.law, texas.public.law
michigan.public.law, washington.public.law
```

**Shibboleth**: Knowing that `apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/` is Washington's statute database while `leg.wa.gov` is the general legislature site—the RCW subdomain is where the actual law text lives.

### 3. 2026 Legal Landscape Awareness

As of 2026, these major changes affect research:

**Clean Slate States** (automatic expungement passed):
- Pennsylvania (2018), Utah (2019), New Jersey (2019), Michigan (2020)
- California (2020), Connecticut (2021), Delaware (2021), Virginia (2021)
- Oklahoma (2022), Colorado (2022), New York (2023), Minnesota (2023)
- Maryland (20