ylj-preemption-check
Use when verifying that a The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) claim is genuinely novel and not preempted by prior scholarship. It runs the systematic SSRN/Westlaw/HeinOnline search and writes the "what's new" paragraph; it does not draft the thesis (use ylj-thesis-and-contribution).
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ylj-preemption-check --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Preemption Check (ylj-preemption-check) In legal academia, **preemption** means someone already published your claim. A YLJ piece that repeats an existing argument is dead on arrival — student editors and the faculty they consult are reading the same SSRN feeds. This skill runs the search systematically and turns the result into the manuscript's "what's new" paragraph. It assumes the claim is already sharp (`ylj-thesis-and-contribution`). ## When to trigger - The thesis is sharp and you must confirm no one has made it - A reviewer/colleague says "didn't so-and-so already argue this?" - You are about to write the "contribution" paragraph of the introduction - You need to distinguish your claim from a *close* existing piece, not just confirm absence ## The four-database sweep (do all four; log each) | Source | What it catches | How to search | |--------|-----------------|---------------| | **SSRN** (Legal Scholarship Network) | Working papers not yet in print — the highest preemption risk | Title/abstract keyword + author follows in your subfield | | **Westlaw** (Secondary Sources / Law Reviews & Journals) | Published law-review articles; KeyCite to see who cites a near-miss | Term
- When to trigger
- The four-database sweep (do all four; log each)
- Classify each near-miss
- Near-miss ledger
- Write the "what's new" paragraph
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Supplementary resources
What does the ylj-preemption-check skill do?
Use when verifying that a The Yale Law Journal (YLJ) claim is genuinely novel and not preempted by prior scholarship. It runs the systematic SSRN/Westlaw/HeinOnline search and writes the "what's new" paragraph; it does not draft the thesis (use ylj-thesis-and-contribution).
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ylj-preemption-check --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 984 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.