Your First Legal AI Agent: Automate NDA And Intake Triage…

Your First Legal AI Agent: Automate NDA And Intake Triage In 90 Days

Nearly half of in‑house legal work is repeatable. NDAs, low‑risk vendor onboarding, and routine approvals dominate intake—but still wait in queues. That’s avoidable. With a well‑scoped AI agent, you can automate the front door of legal in 90 days and return hours to your team every week.

Sandstone’s view: legal should be the connective tissue of the business. When your playbooks, positions, and workflows live in an AI‑powered operating system, every request strengthens your foundation instead of siphoning time.

Why Start With NDA + Intake Triage

NDAs often make up a large share of contract volume and follow stable rules.
Intake triage is high‑frequency, low‑variance, and perfect for policy‑driven routing.
Both unlock measurable wins fast: shorter cycle time, fewer handoffs, cleaner data.

Legacy ticketing creates drag; chatbots without context create risk. An AI agent grounded in your playbooks and templates applies guardrails, not guesses—classifying requests, drafting safe‑to‑send NDAs, and escalating only true exceptions. That’s strength through layers: layered data, modular workflows, and decisions that build on each other.

The Workflow Blueprint (Built For Agents)

Here’s the minimal, durable flow Sandstone customers use to automate Day 1 value:

Smart intake: capture purpose, counterparty, data types, and urgency via a lightweight form or Slack/Teams. The agent normalizes fields and flags missing info.
Policy‑based classification: sales NDA, mutual NDA, one‑way NDA; vendor vs. customer intake; data categories that trigger DPA/security.
Playbook application: clause guardrails, fallback positions, and approval thresholds applied consistently.
Draft and dispatch: generate the right NDA from templates, tag metadata, send for e‑signature, or request redlines when counterparty paper is required.
Triage and route: auto‑assign DPAs to privacy, security questionnaires to InfoSec, and only exceptions to legal.
Continuous learning: capture outcomes (accepted fallback, negotiated clause) to refine the playbook—knowledge compounds instead of disappearing.

This is crafted precision. Tools carved to fit the contours of how your team already works, integrated naturally into CRM, procurement, and email without forcing process rewrites.

A 30‑60‑90 Day Plan That Actually Ships

Day 0–30: Prove the path

Audit the last 50 NDAs and 30 vendor intakes. Identify top 5 rules that decide 80% of outcomes (template choice, term limit, signature authority, data flags, approval path).
Codify a v1 playbook: approved templates, redline boundaries, and routing map.
Connect intake where work already happens (Salesforce, Zendesk, Slack/Teams). No new portal if you can help it.

Day 31–60: Orchestrate the flow

Deploy the agent for “green zone” NDAs (no edits, standard term) and low‑risk vendor intake.
Turn on approvals only where risk increases (non‑standard terms, personal data processing, cross‑border transfers).
Instrument metrics: stamp cycle times, auto‑approval rates, exception reasons.

Day 61–90: Expand and harden

Add counterparty paper handling with guided redlines based on your fallback positions.
Introduce DPA automation: detect triggers, pre‑fill annexes, route privacy reviews with context.
Tune the model with outcomes data; publish a one‑page playbook to Sales and Procurement.

Pro tip: A 12‑month rollout is a change‑management program, not a pilot. Ship a narrow scope in weeks, measure, then scale.

Metrics That Matter (And How To Report Them)

Cycle time: median time from request to signature for standard NDAs; target under 24 hours for green‑zone.
Auto‑resolution rate: % of NDAs and intakes completed without legal touch; target 60–80% as playbooks mature.
Exception rate by reason: edits requested, data risk, missing inputs—so you can fix root causes.
Stakeholder adoption: intake through the approved channel vs. side doors; aim for 90%+ by making intake the fastest path.

Package these as a simple dashboard tied to revenue and vendor activation. “We cut NDA cycle time by 72% and auto‑resolved 65% of vendor intakes” is the language of trust.

Why An AI Agent On A Knowledge Layer Wins

Automation without context breaks. Sandstone’s agent sits on a living knowledge layer—your playbooks, templates, approval policies, and past decisions—so it doesn’t just draft text; it makes decisions the way your team does.

Strength through layers: every intake and outcome updates the operating system.
Natural integration: the agent works in email, Slack/Teams, and your CRM/ERP.
Crafted precision: granular controls on clause boundaries, data triggers, and approvers.

The result: speed without sacrificing alignment or governance.

Your Next Step

Choose two workflows to pilot: standard NDAs and low‑risk vendor intake. In two weeks, codify the top five rules, connect intake where users already work, and enable the agent for green‑zone requests. Measure cycle time and auto‑resolution rates from day one.

When legal operates on Sandstone, knowledge compounds. Each request strengthens the foundation—turning legal from reactive support into a proactive force for speed, alignment, and trust at the heart of the business.