AI Intake Triage for Legal Ops: The Key to Visibility, Ownership, and Impact

AI Intake Triage for Legal Ops: The Key to Visibility, Ownership, and Impact

Most in-house teams tell us that six out of ten requests still arrive via email or chat, with no form, no context, and no SLA. That’s where cycle time goes to die. Intake isn’t just an inbox problem—it’s the front door to legal operations. Nail it and you unlock speed and predictable service; miss it and you scale chaos. Here’s what AI-driven intake triage is, why it matters, and how to deploy it without slowing the business.

What It Is

AI intake triage is the automation layer that classifies, routes, and accelerates legal requests the moment they appear—across email, Slack, Salesforce, or a portal. It captures metadata, applies policy-as-code from your playbooks, drafts first responses or documents, and assigns the right owner.

On Sandstone, that means layered knowledge (playbooks, positions, clause libraries) meets modular workflows (intake forms, approvals, SLAs). An AI agent reads the request, maps it to your rules, proposes next steps, and logs the decision—so knowledge compounds instead of disappearing.

Why It Matters

When intake triage runs on rails, legal operations gain:

- Visibility: One queue, clean data, and real-time status across legal ops workflows.

- Ownership: Clear routing, SLAs, and audit trails—no more “Who has this?”

- Impact: Faster cycle times, fewer escalations, and a better partner experience for the business.

Teams see quicker first-touch responses, higher auto-resolution for routine work (think NDAs), and fewer context-switches for attorneys. In short: speed without sacrificing control.

How to Put It to Work

1) Map your front doors

- List every intake channel (email aliases, Slack, portals, CRM). Consolidate them into a single queue via lightweight redirects or connectors. No-code connectors make this a day-one win.

2) Normalize the data

- Require the minimum viable fields for triage: business owner, counterparty, jurisdiction, template needed, deadline, and risk flags. Use dynamic forms that adapt based on answer logic.

3) Encode your playbooks

- Translate guidance into rules the system can execute: when to auto-draft, when to route to legal, when to escalate. Start with NDAs, vendor DPAs, and marketing reviews—high-volume, low-variance work.

4) Deploy an AI router and drafter

- Let AI classify the request, suggest the correct workflow, and draft first outputs: NDA from approved template, intake acknowledgment, or a data request for missing context. Keep humans-in-the-loop for exceptions.

5) Close the loop with approvals and learning

- Route approvals to the right approver, capture feedback, and publish outcomes back to the requester where the work started (Slack, email). Every decision updates the knowledge layer for stronger, faster future triage.

Example: An NDA request hits the shared inbox. Sandstone’s AI reads the email, extracts parties, selects the correct template, applies your fallback positions, and ships a draft for e-sign—while logging the matter and starting the clock on your SLA. If a non-standard clause appears, it routes to counsel with context and a suggested redline.

What to Measure

- Intake-to-first-touch time: Minutes from request to acknowledgment or auto-draft.

- Auto-resolution rate: % of matters closed without attorney touch.

- SLA adherence: % of requests meeting defined response and completion targets.

- Cycle time by matter type: NDA, DPA, marketing review, procurement.

- Deflection and quality: % of requests rerouted to self-serve; requester CSAT.

These KPIs prove visibility, ownership, and impact—your legal ops north star.

Common Pitfalls (and Fixes)

- Automating before aligning: If playbooks are fuzzy, AI will be too. Fix: codify positions first, then automate.

- One big bang launch: Broad scope slows adoption. Fix: start with one workflow (NDAs), then layer in DPAs and approvals.

- Shadow channels persist: Requests keep sneaking in back doors. Fix: redirect legacy aliases and pin intake in Slack/portal.

- No audit trail: Actions live in DMs. Fix: log every decision, draft, and handoff in the matter record by default.

- Over-personalization: Tailored rules per attorney increase fragility. Fix: craft shared rules; use exceptions sparingly.

Your Next Step

Pilot AI triage on NDAs in two weeks: centralize the NDA inbox, define five routing rules, and enable auto-draft from your standard template with human review for red flags. Measure auto-resolution and first-touch time. If the numbers move, expand to vendor DPAs and marketing approvals.

Sandstone was built for strength through layers—policy-as-code, modular workflows, and AI agents that learn from every decision. It blends naturally into how your team already works while carving tools to your exact contours. Turn intake from a bottleneck into connective tissue, and make scalable, streamlined legal operations the bedrock of trust and growth across the business.