How To Automate Legal Intake: Cut Cycle Time by 40%

Here’s the quiet killer in your contract cycle time: waits, not work. Across recent Sandstone deployments, intake friction alone adds 3–5 days per matter—mostly from hunting context, routing by hand, and restarting reviews that arrive half-baked.

The good news: a structured, AI-assisted intake removes that drag. With a simple frontline form, smart triage, and playbook-led answers, legal can cut cycle time by 30–40% while increasing consistency and trust.

Why Intake Is Where Time Disappears

Most requests hit legal through email or Slack with missing context. Business partners ask for “a quick look,” but omit terms, counterparties, data exposures, or deadlines. Legal becomes a human switchboard. Work stalls while you chase details, sort priority, and redirect to the right owner.

Two things break this loop:

- Standardized capture at the door (so work starts complete).

- Rules-based routing (so the right work hits the right lane immediately).

Do that, and your team moves from reactive support to a proactive operating layer—visible, predictable, and fast.

The FAST Framework for Intake Automation

Adopt this four-step pattern to get live in 30 days.

- Form: Create one front door for all legal work. Keep it short and decisive: request type, counterparties, data/location, value/risk band, deadline, attached docs. Use conditional questions so sales sees only what sales needs.

- Assist: Use AI to auto-summarize attachments and clarify missing info. The assistant should draft a short brief: what this is, who’s involved, key terms, and open questions for the requester.

- Standardize: Map each request type to a playbook. Define when to use standard templates, what positions are negotiable, and who approves exceptions. Encode the playbook so the system can apply it—don’t bury it in a PDF.

- Triage: Route by rules. Low-risk flows to self-serve templates; medium-risk to a specialist queue; high-risk to counsel with a checklist and the playbook pre-loaded.

This is where Sandstone shines: layered data, modular workflows, and decisions that build on each other. Every request strengthens your foundation.

What AI Agents Do in Practice (On Sandstone)

With Sandstone’s AI agents, intake becomes both accessible and actionable:

- Parse and classify: Detect request type from free text and documents. Map to your taxonomy (e.g., NDA, MSA, DPA, marketing review).

- Summarize context: Extract parties, governing law, data types, and key obligations. Flag missing context and prompt the requester for specifics.

- Risk lens: Apply your playbook to auto-assess risk bands (e.g., data sharing + overseas processing = elevated). Suggest the correct template or fallback position.

- Route and notify: Assign to the right queue or auto-approve low-risk paths. Send crisp updates to business stakeholders with SLAs and next steps.

- Draft and compare: Generate first-pass markups against your standard positions; highlight deviations and required approvals.

- Learn and embed: Capture final decisions back into the knowledge layer so the next, similar matter moves faster.

Natural integration matters. Sandstone meets teams where they work—intake from Salesforce, Slack, or email; updates back to the same channels. No forced behavior change, just less friction.

Prove It With KPIs That Business Cares About

Baseline before you automate, then publish improvements. Start with:

- Time to acknowledge: Target <2 hours with automated confirmations.

- Time to triage: Target same-day routing with AI-assisted classification.

- Cycle time (by request type): Aim for 30–40% reduction on NDAs/low-risk contracts.

- SLA adherence: Commit to clear lanes (e.g., low-risk within 2 business days).

- Self-serve rate: Increase the share of matters resolved without attorney time.

- Playbook adherence: Track decisions vs. standard positions to surface drift.

- Requester satisfaction: A quick CSAT on close builds trust and feedback loops.

When the business sees shorter cycle times and predictable SLAs, legal graduates from “help desk” to strategic operator.

A 30-Day Plan You Can Actually Ship

Week 1 — Map the top 5 request types (by volume). Extract the must-have fields, templates, and approval rules from your current process. Identify the one sales team or region to pilot.

Week 2 — Build the front door. Launch the intake form with conditional logic. Connect Slack/Salesforce. Configure Sandstone’s AI to classify, summarize, and ask for missing info.

Week 3 — Encode the playbooks. Load your standard positions and exception triggers. Set routing rules. Turn on auto-approvals for clearly low-risk requests (e.g., mutual NDA ≤ $0 value, no personal data).

Week 4 — Pilot and measure. Roll out to the pilot group. Monitor the queue daily. Publish your first KPI dashboard. Tweak prompts and rules based on real traffic. Plan the next cohort.

Actionable Next Step

Pick one workflow—NDAs, vendor reviews, or marketing approvals. In one hour, list the 8–10 fields you always chase, the template you want by default, and the two exception triggers that require counsel. Build the form. Connect routing. Turn on AI summaries. Ship it to a small cohort this week.

When that lane stabilizes, add the next. Layer by layer, your operating system hardens—stronger with every request.

The Payoff: Speed, Alignment, Trust

Automated intake isn’t about replacing judgment; it’s about reserving it for the right moments. By standardizing capture, encoding playbooks, and letting AI do the busywork, legal moves in harmony with the business. That’s Sandstone’s promise: a living, AI-powered foundation where knowledge compounds, workflows click, and every decision builds the next layer of strength. Scale without bottlenecks. Lead through systems, not heroics.