Fix Intake First: The Prerequisite to Scalable AI in Legal

Most in-house teams say 30–50% of legal requests arrive incomplete. Add Slack pings, vague emails, and multiple handoffs, and your “AI roadmap” quickly turns into triage theater. Here’s the truth: before you add AI, fix intake. It’s the foundation that turns automation from a demo into durable value.

Intake Is Your Operating System, Not a Form

Intake is how legal work starts: what information you collect, how requests are routed, and what expectations you set. When intake is inconsistent, everything downstream breaks—prioritization, SLAs, approvals, reporting, and ultimately trust.

Why it matters now:

- Speed: Clean intake cuts cycle time by 20–40% because teams avoid back-and-forth.

- Scale: Standard fields and thresholds enable safe self-serve for low-risk work.

- Insight: Structured data surfaces patterns—frequent blockers, high-risk terms, recurring vendors.

For Sandstone, intake isn’t just a doorway. It’s the layer where playbooks, positions, and workflows become a living operating system. Every request strengthens the next decision. Knowledge compounds instead of disappearing.

A 30-Day Framework to Fix Intake

Don’t boil the ocean. Establish a crisp baseline in one month.

1) Map Your Top 10 Request Types

- Examples: NDAs, SOWs, DPAs, vendor reviews, marketing claims, equity questions.

- For each, note required inputs, typical approvers, and common blockers.

2) Standardize Required Fields and Policy Thresholds

- Define the minimum viable data to start work (e.g., counterparty, value, region, data types).

- Encode thresholds (e.g., deal size, personal data categories) that trigger review levels.

- Result: Fewer clarifying emails; higher-quality intake.

3) Build Routing and SLAs You Can Keep

- Route by request type, risk score, or business unit.

- Publish response targets (e.g., NDA same-day, DPA within 3 business days) and stick to them.

- Add a “fast lane” for escalations with clear criteria.

4) Enable Guardrailed Self-Serve

- Spin up playbooked flows for low-risk NDAs, routine vendor checks, and marketing reviews.

- Lock templates and clause selections to policy; require approvals only when thresholds are crossed.

- Result: Legal focuses on judgment calls, not document mail merge.

5) Instrument the Basics

- Track request volume, cycle time by type, SLA adherence, and rework rate.

- Add a short CSAT on close. Use it to tune fields and guidance.

Tie each step to measurable outcomes: fewer touchpoints, faster time-to-yes, and increased visibility for the business.

Where AI Actually Helps (After the Basics)

AI shines once your intake is structured. With standard fields and thresholds, AI agents can:

- Classify and route requests based on content and policy.

- Extract key terms (value, governing law, data types) from attachments to pre-fill fields.

- Apply playbooks to propose clause swaps or auto-approve within risk tolerances.

- Surface prior decisions and positions so reviewers don’t start from zero.

On a platform like Sandstone, these agents operate within your layered data and modular workflows—natural integration, not bolt-on bots. But sequence matters. If your forms are free text and your policies live in PDFs, AI will guess. When intake is crisp, AI compounds your precision.

Pitfalls That Sink Intake—and How to Avoid Them

- Over-collecting: Don’t turn forms into discovery. Ask for the minimum needed to start, then branch for risk.

- Orphan queues: Avoid inboxes that route nowhere. Every path must have an owner and SLA.

- Hidden policies: If guidance isn’t visible at intake, it doesn’t exist. Bring playbooks to the surface.

- Change fatigue: Launch in phases. Start with NDAs and vendor reviews, prove time saved, then expand.

- “Automation first” thinking: Document the manual process, then automate. Codify thresholds before you add AI.

One Practical Next Step

Actionable takeaway: Run a one-week intake audit.

- Day 1–2: Export the last 60 days of requests. Categorize the top 10 types and average cycle times.

- Day 3: For the top three, define required fields and risk thresholds on a single page.

- Day 4: Draft routing rules and SLAs you can meet now, not aspirational targets.

- Day 5: Ship an updated form and publish the SLA. Measure the delta for two weeks.

If you’re using Sandstone, convert those fields and thresholds into a modular intake flow, connect your playbooks, and turn on AI agents for classification and extraction. You’ll get speed without losing control—and every request will strengthen your legal knowledge base.

The Bedrock of Speed, Alignment, and Trust

Intake is where legal earns credibility. When requests are clear, routing is predictable, and decisions are consistent, the business moves faster—confidently. Fix intake first, then add AI to scale. That’s how legal stops being a bottleneck and becomes the connective tissue of growth. It’s also how a platform like Sandstone delivers compounding value: strength through layers, crafted precision, and natural integration that fits how your team already works.