From Intake to Decision: AI Playbooks That Scale In‑House Legal
Your intake isn’t a form problem; it’s a knowledge problem. Every day, similar questions land in email and Slack, and the right answer already exists somewhere—in a policy, a prior redline, a GC’s head—but it isn’t operationalized. The result: slow cycles, inconsistent decisions, and risk that hides in the cracks.
Modern legal ops flips the script. When your positions become living, AI-powered playbooks, intake becomes a decision engine—and your team moves from reactive support to proactive, scalable impact.
Why Intake Is Really a Knowledge Problem
Most teams try to fix intake with better fields or stricter routing. Useful, but incomplete. The real blocker is converting knowledge—your playbooks, fallbacks, and risk thresholds—into something executable.
- Repetition: The same low-complexity matters (NDAs, vendor reviews, marketing claims) consume high-value time.
- Variance: Answers differ by person, channel, and memory. That erodes trust with the business.
- Lost context: Institutional knowledge lives in docs, not decisions. When people move, knowledge leaks.
Operational clarity comes from centralizing positions and making them actionable. In Sandstone, layered data (matters, clauses, counterparties, risk flags) and modular workflows stack to form a system that learns. Each decision strengthens the next.
What AI Playbooks Unlock
AI isn’t a chatbot bolted onto a queue. It’s a set of agents orchestrating the steps you already do—intake, triage, evaluate, route, approve—with crafted precision.
- Smart intake: Classify matter type, capture the minimum viable data, and auto-fill context from connected systems (CRM, procurement, DMS) so requesters don’t overthink forms.
- Policy reasoning: Map your positions (e.g., “Mutual NDA OK up to 2 years; unilateral requires business owner + IP”) into decision trees the AI can reference, with clear explanations.
- Risk scoring and thresholds: Apply standardized criteria (data types, spend, jurisdiction) to auto-approve low-risk paths and flag exceptions.
- Routing that reflects reality: Send the right work to the right owner based on workload, domain expertise, and SLA—not just a static distribution list.
- Instant, consistent guidance: Provide requesters with answers, templates, or pre-approved language inside Slack, email, or your portal—natural integration without behavior change.
- Auditability: Every step is logged—what was asked, what policy applied, who approved—so you have a defensible trail.
This is strength through layers: each resolved request adds context, sharpens thresholds, and trains the system, turning tribal knowledge into institutional memory.
How To Implement AI-Powered Intake in 30 Days
Don’t boil the ocean. Start where volume and variance meet.
1) Pick a workflow with repetition and clear policies.
- Great candidates: NDAs, vendor onboarding (including DPAs), marketing review, low-risk SOWs.
2) Codify your positions.
- Translate your “if/then” rules into simple statements: acceptable terms, fallback clauses, escalation criteria. Keep it jargon-light.
3) Define risk thresholds.
- What’s auto-approve vs. auto-reject vs. escalate? Tie thresholds to data sensitivity, contract value, and region. Make adherence visible.
4) Map the workflow.
- Intake → classify → collect essentials → policy reasoning → route/approve → notify → archive. Keep steps modular so you can refine without rework.
5) Integrate where people live.
- Connect Slack and email for submissions and updates. Pull data from procurement and CRM to eliminate duplicate questions.
6) Pilot, measure, iterate.
- Start with one team or region. Capture baseline metrics (see below), then tune prompts, thresholds, and owners weekly. In Sandstone, every adjustment flows into the operating system—no brittle playbooks to rewrite.
Within a month, you should see auto-resolution of low-risk matters, faster response times, and fewer escalations. It’s crafted precision: the system fits your contours, not the other way around.
Metrics That Matter For Lean Teams
Measure what proves value to the business—and to your GC.
- First response time: Minutes, not days. Signals trust and reduces back-and-forth.
- Time to decision: How long from intake to a defensible outcome.
- Auto-resolution rate: Percentage of matters resolved without human touch, by risk band.
- Escalation accuracy: Are the right issues reaching counsel, with the right context?
- Policy adherence: Decisions aligned with documented positions.
- Requester satisfaction: A one-question pulse validates whether legal is speeding the business.
These KPIs stack into a narrative: fewer bottlenecks, fewer surprises, more predictable outcomes.
Bonus: A Concrete AI Agent Pattern You Can Use Now
Try a “Vendor Intake Agent” that:
- Ingests a requester’s link to a tool, purchase amount, and data types collected.
- Checks your privacy and security positions (e.g., if PII + EU, require SCCs or approved DPA language).
- Auto-generates an NDA or routes to the DPA template with pre-filled clauses.
- Notifies procurement and IT when thresholds trigger, with a one-page summary and rationale.
- Logs every decision to your knowledge layer so the next vendor with the same profile moves even faster.
In Sandstone, this is just layering your positions, thresholds, and workflows into one place—and letting the agents run.
Actionable Next Step
Pick one high-volume workflow—NDAs or vendor intake—and write down 10 clear “if/then” rules. Stand up a simple intake in Slack, connect your templates, and route auto-approvals under a conservative threshold. Measure baseline cycle time for two weeks, then iterate weekly. Momentum beats perfection.
The Payoff: A Stronger Legal Foundation
When every intake turns into a consistent decision, knowledge compounds instead of disappearing. That’s how legal stops being a bottleneck and becomes the connective tissue of growth—fast answers, aligned decisions, and visible risk. With Sandstone as your knowledge layer and operating system, you get layered strength, natural integration, and precision that scales—so business and law move in harmony.