Sandstone · In-house legal

How mature is your legal team’s knowledge management?

This is about how your team keeps what it already knows: the positions it has taken, the playbooks it uses, and the reasons behind past calls. It is not a quiz on the law.

Sixteen questions, about five minutes. You leave with a level from 1 to 4, where teams your size usually sit, and up to two priority gaps, each with a next step.

Why take this

Your level, how teams your size usually score, and the next move on up to two priority gaps.

Good is Level 3 for most teams, and Level 4 only at 10 or more people in legal, or 25 or more for playbooks and ownership. Sandstone sets that bar. Peer lines are from interviews with in-house teams.

Level 1

Ad Hoc

Knowledge lives in heads, inboxes and personal folders.

Level 2

Captured

Written down somewhere, but hard to find, often stale, and reused only when someone remembers.

Level 3

Applied

Shared, findable and reused in daily work, but people keep it up by hand.

Level 4

Operationalized

Built into workflows, updated by the work itself, and feeding AI and the business.

About your team

Targets depend on how big the legal function is. Good comes from Sandstone’s Knowledge Maturity Model, set against interviews with in-house teams. It is not a perfect score of 4.

LawyersOther legal staffParalegals, contract managers, adminsLegal operationsCompany employeesIndustry

Total legal headcount: 16. Targets for your team: Level 3 everywhere, except with 16 people in legal, everyone needs one place to look (Level 4 on where knowledge lives and findability); you have legal ops, so ownership and measurement should reach Level 4.

01Capture

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Does reasoning get written down when the work happens?

When your team works out a position or makes a judgment call, what happens to the reasoning?

1It stays in the lawyer's head or in an email thread.2Sometimes someone writes it up, in their own notes or folder.3The decision and the reason for it are routinely recorded in a shared place the team uses.4It is captured as part of the work (request, redline, approval) with the reason for the call, linked to the matter and searchable next time.

For what share of matters is outside counsel's work product (memos, advice, final drafts) stored and indexed where the team can find it?% of matters

1None. It sits in individual inboxes.2Some matters, when someone remembers to file it.3More than 30% of matters, stored and indexed.4Nearly all matters, filed automatically when the work comes in.

Peer average 1.9 · good for your size: 3

“Right now the institutional memory is just in the brains of the individuals that happen to be able to communicate it at a given time”

Chief Legal Officer · 5–9 lawyers · software

02Where it lives

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Is knowledge in one connected place, or scattered?

Where does most of your team's legal knowledge live today?

1People's heads, inboxes and personal folders.2A shared drive, but the context stays in email and Slack.3One agreed system of record that most work flows through.4One connected record, with requests, documents, decisions and counterparties linked across email, Slack and CRM.

In how many places does your team's work product live, including the email threads where the real decisions are made?Storage locations

1Multiple: five or more places, including inboxes and personal drives.2Several: two to four shared places.3Single: one system of record, though email still needs filing by hand.4Single and connected: email and Slack flow in automatically.

Peer average 2.2 · good for your size: 4

“Use a CLM, we use G drive. We use Salesforce, like it's a bunch of different things and we want to centralize all of that”

Legal technology lead · 25+ lawyers · financial services

03Findability

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Can anyone answer "do we have an NDA with X?" in a minute?

Someone asks "Do we have an NDA with this company?" How long until you can answer with confidence?

1Hours or days, or we're never fully sure.2Up to an hour of digging.3A few minutes in one system.4Seconds, and the business can check for themselves.

Is there a directory of who on the team (and in outside counsel) knows what?% of legal professionals covered

1No directory. You ask around.2A limited directory covering some people or topics.3A full directory of the legal team's experience.4A full directory that updates itself from the work people actually do.

Peer average 2.0 · good for your size: 4

“I know it's in here somewhere but I can't find it, you know, kind of thing.”

Legal Operations Manager · 10–19 lawyers · manufacturing

04Reuse & playbooks

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Do past positions shape new work, and do outcomes update the playbook?

What share of the contracts your team handles is covered by a legal playbook (positions and fallbacks)?% of contracts

1Up to 20%.221–50%.3More than 50%.4More than 50%, and the playbooks apply automatically during review.

When was your main playbook last updated, and why?

1We don't have one.2Over a year ago, whenever someone found time.3In the last six months, on a review schedule.4Continuously. Negotiation outcomes and deviations feed the updates.

Peer average 2.3 · good for your size: 3

“So we end up doing a lot of like revisiting the wheel. I'm sorry, recreating the wheel all the time.”

In-house lawyer · 20–49 lawyers · software

05Resilience

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What walks out the door when someone leaves, and how fast do new hires ramp?

If your most experienced lawyer left tomorrow, what would walk out the door?

1Much of what we know: positions, history, relationships.2A lot of the context behind our documented positions.3Some nuance, but positions and history are recorded.4Very little. Someone else could pick up a live negotiation today.

How long until a new lawyer applies your team's positions without asking colleagues?

1Six months or more.2Three to six months.3One to three months.4A few weeks. The system guides them from day one.

Peer average 1.6 · good for your size: 3

“So then you are like, okay, how do I recover? And who do I know actually this person was working on what?”

In-house lawyer · 20–49 lawyers · software

06Business self-service

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Can the business get answers without messaging legal?

What share of requests from the business is resolved through self-service tools, with no lawyer involved?% of requests

1Under 5%.25–20%.3More than 20%.4More than 20%, measured, and rising every quarter.

For what share of contract types does the business have its own playbook (what it can agree to without legal)?% of contract types

1Up to 10%.211–50%.3More than 50%.4More than 50%, built into the tools the business already uses.

Peer average 1.5 · good for your size: 3

“I feel like half my job is just routing people to the right place.”

Assistant General Counsel · 10–24 lawyers · tech

07AI context

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Does AI run on the team's shared knowledge, or on each person's own setup?

How does your team use AI on real legal work?

1Not at all, or it's not permitted.2Individuals use general tools with their own prompts and files.3A team-approved tool with some shared templates or playbooks.4AI runs on the team's shared, governed knowledge inside the workflow.

Where does your AI get its context?

1Whatever we paste in each time.2Each lawyer's own setup, such as a personal project.3A shared library, some of the time.4A maintained, permissioned record. Answers cite our own precedent.

Peer average 2.6 · good for your size: 3

“Like we have Gemini, we have Claude, but they're still siloed”

Legal Operations · 10–24 lawyers · tech

08Ownership & measurement

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Does anyone own knowledge, and can legal show its value with data?

Who owns keeping the team's knowledge current?

1Nobody.2Whoever cares, in their spare time.3A named owner with time set aside for it.4A named owner with a routine, plus tooling that flags stale or missing knowledge.

When leadership asks about legal's value or workload, what can you show?

1Anecdotes.2Numbers pulled together by hand.3Regular reports on volume and turnaround.4Live data on volume, cycle time, deflection and risk, tied to business outcomes.

Peer average 1.6 · good for your size: 4

“I feel like I have no data on what we do, how fast we do it, where it's coming from, where we're deploying resources.”

In-house lawyer · 10–19 lawyers · media

+Consistency check

Not scored

This shows how the score plays out for the business.

How often do two people on your team give the business different answers to the same question?

•Weekly or more•About monthly•A few times a year•Almost never

Your result

–/ 4.0

Answer to see your level

You (biggest gaps in clay)Peer averageGood for your size

Capture

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Where it lives

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Findability

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Reuse & playbooks

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Resilience

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Business self-service

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AI context

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Ownership & measurement

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1234

Priority gaps

Answer a few areas to see your gaps.

Consistency

Not answered yet.

Teams that give conflicting answers monthly or more average 1.8 overall; teams that rarely do average 2.5.

0 of 16 answered

Your full score stays blurred until you unlock it.

Built on Sandstone’s Knowledge Maturity Model (Ad Hoc, Captured, Applied, Operationalized). Peer averages come from interviews with in-house legal teams. The size targets are Sandstone’s.

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