How to Automate Legal Intake With AI Agents to Speed Deals

Most in-house legal teams still triage work in shared inboxes and spreadsheets—then wonder why a simple NDA takes a week. Across the teams we advise, intake and triage consume 25–40% of legal ops time and create the biggest variability in cycle time and risk exposure. The good news: this is exactly where AI (Artificial Intelligence) agents shine.

Sandstone turns your playbooks and positions into a living, AI-powered operating system. Below is a practical blueprint to automate intake, reduce firefighting, and give Sales–Legal a shared path to speed and trust.

Define the Bottleneck: Intake Is the Hidden Wait State

If you can’t see requests the moment they arrive—or route them by type and risk—everything slows. Symptoms are familiar: untracked requests, unclear ownership, last-minute escalations, and shadow contracts drifting outside approved guardrails. That’s not just inefficiency; it’s a governance gap.

Start by mapping the top 5 request types driving volume and friction (e.g., NDA, MSA, SOW, vendor paper review, privacy questionnaires). For each, capture the minimum fields needed to route and decide. Define SLAs (Service Level Agreements) by request type and business priority. Align with Sales, Procurement, and Security so Legal–Security–Procurement decisions move in lockstep.

Build an AI‑Ready Intake: Standardize, Tag, Govern

AI agents work best when your forms and playbooks are consistent. A lightweight operating model beats ad hoc heroics.

- Standardize request forms: limit to the fields that drive routing and risk (counterparty, value, data types, urgency, territory).

- Normalize metadata: document type, jurisdiction, data categories, and cross-functional approvals.

- Codify positions: capture fallbacks and preferred language in playbooks tied to each clause.

- Set SLAs and queues: define assignment logic and escalation paths before automation.

- Add audit controls: every decision, redline, and approval needs a trail.

With Sandstone, these choices become structured data. Each new request strengthens your knowledge layer so answers get faster—and safer—the next time.

Automate Triage With AI Agents: A Practical Flow on Sandstone

Here’s how a Sandstone agent turns intake into momentum, not backlog:

1) Classify the request: A rep submits from the CRM or email. The agent detects type (NDA, MSA, SOW) and business context. NDA = Non‑Disclosure Agreement; MSA = Master Services Agreement; SOW = Statement of Work.

2) Extract key facts: Counterparty, effective date, governing law, order value, data flows. If personal data is present, the agent flags PII (Personally Identifiable Information).

3) Route and set SLAs: Based on value, region, and risk, the agent assigns the right queue and applies the correct SLA.

4) Launch the right playbook: The agent opens the clause playbook and suggests redlines aligned to your approved positions—no reinventing the wheel.

5) Trigger adjacent workflows: If data crosses borders, the agent initiates a DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment) checklist for Privacy; if security controls are unclear, it requests the vendor’s security packet.

6) Sync status to the business: The agent posts milestones to the CRM and notifies the requester. No more “any update?” pings.

7) Guardrails by design: Anything outside policy routes to a human reviewer with clear context and recommended next steps.

Result: faster first response, fewer misroutes, and consistent, policy‑aligned redlines from day one.

Measure What Matters: KPIs and Controls

You can’t scale what you don’t measure. Establish a baseline, then track:

- First‑response time vs SLA, by request type

- Cycle time from intake to signature, segmented by risk tier

- Auto‑resolution rate (agent‑handled without human edits)

- Playbook adherence and deviation reasons

- Exception rate and rework drivers

- Risk flags raised vs cleared (privacy, security, terms)

Controls to keep auditors and GCs comfortable: versioned playbooks, approver checkpoints for high‑risk terms, immutable audit logs, and permissioned access to sensitive data. Sandstone bakes these into the workflow so governance scales with speed.

Start Small: A Two‑Week Pilot Plan

You don’t need a transformation program to see value—just a contained, measurable pilot.

Week 1: Design

- Pick two intake types (e.g., NDA and low‑risk vendor MSA under a spend threshold).

- Define required fields, SLAs, and routing rules.

- Import your clause library with preferred and fallback positions.

- Connect sources (CRM, shared inbox) and destinations (eSignature, ticketing).

- Test with 10 historical matters to tune extractions and redline suggestions.

Week 2: Launch and Iterate

- Go live for a small cohort (Sales for NDAs; Procurement for low‑risk MSAs).

- Daily stand‑ups to review exceptions and tune rules.

- Publish a simple requester guide and shared dashboard.

- Target outcomes: <2 hours first‑response, 30–50% agent‑handled NDAs, measurable drop in cycle time.

Actionable takeaway: Use the above as your Pilot Checklist. If you can’t define a field, rule, or fallback, pause and write the policy—then let the agent enforce it.

The Payoff: Legal as a Proactive Force for Speed and Trust

When intake is automated and policy‑driven, Legal stops being a bottleneck and becomes the connective tissue of the business. Each request compounds your institutional knowledge; each decision strengthens your foundation. That’s Sandstone’s promise: strength through layers, crafted precision, and natural integration—an operating system where business and law move in harmony, and growth comes with clarity and confidence.