# Legal Intake Policy Template

> **Notice.** This template is a starting framework for legal operations teams to standardize how legal requests enter the workflow. It is not legal advice. Adapt the language to your organization's policies, then have qualified counsel review before publication.

**Owner:** _Legal Operations Lead — [Name]_
**Reviewed by:** _General Counsel — [Name]_
**Effective date:** _[YYYY-MM-DD]_
**Version:** _v1.0_
**Review cadence:** _Quarterly_

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## 1. Purpose

This policy defines how the legal team accepts, prioritizes, and routes incoming work requests so that:

- Every request reaches the right reviewer or counsel with complete context.
- Standard requests follow a self-serve drafting path.
- Material risk reaches counsel quickly with a complete handoff package.
- Operational metrics for cycle time, escalation precision, and override rates are measurable.

## 2. Scope

This policy applies to all legal work requests originating from internal teams, including but not limited to:

- Contract drafting and review (vendor, customer, partner)
- NDAs (mutual and one-way)
- Employment and contractor agreements
- Privacy and security review of new data flows
- Marketing and product copy review (regulated claims, IP)
- Subpoenas, regulatory inquiries, and litigation hold requests

**Out of scope:** internal HR disputes, M&A workflows above $[Threshold], and matters where outside counsel is already engaged.

## 3. Required intake fields

All requests must include the following information before they enter the queue. Incomplete requests are returned to the requester within one business day with a checklist of what is missing.

### 3.1 Business context

- [ ] Requesting team and accountable business owner (named individual)
- [ ] Counterparty legal entity name (and parent if relevant)
- [ ] Contract type (MSA, SOW, NDA, DPA, employment offer, etc.)
- [ ] Requested effective date and target signature date
- [ ] Commercial value band: [<$25K] | [$25K–$100K] | [$100K–$500K] | [$500K–$1M] | [>$1M]
- [ ] Renewal or term expectation (one-time, annual, multi-year, perpetual)

### 3.2 Risk and policy

- [ ] Data sensitivity category (none / public / internal / confidential / restricted)
- [ ] Cross-border data flow scope (jurisdictions involved)
- [ ] Regulatory implications (employment, privacy, payments, sector-specific)
- [ ] Non-standard terms requested by business stakeholders
- [ ] Use of AI / automated decisioning in the contract scope
- [ ] Existing related agreements (parent MSA, DPA, BAA)

### 3.3 Workflow signals

- [ ] Counterparty paper or own paper
- [ ] Negotiation lane requested: [Standard] | [Expedited] | [Strategic]
- [ ] Business decision deadline (with reason if compressed)
- [ ] Authorized fallback positions on key commercial terms

## 4. Routing rules

| Trigger | Route |
| --- | --- |
| Standard NDA on own paper, value < $25K | Self-serve template, business-owner signature |
| Standard MSA / SOW on own paper, value < $100K | Reviewer queue, 2-day SLA |
| Counterparty paper, any value | Reviewer queue, 3-day SLA |
| Value > $500K OR strategic flag OR data restricted | Senior reviewer + counsel notification |
| Privacy / security material change | Privacy reviewer + security review handoff |
| Litigation, regulatory, or subpoena | Direct counsel handoff, 4-hour acknowledgment |

## 5. Rejection criteria

A request may be returned to the requester (not rejected outright) when:

1. Required intake fields above are missing or contradict each other.
2. The requested timeline is incompatible with the policy SLA without documented business justification from a VP-level owner.
3. The request duplicates an in-flight matter already assigned to a reviewer.
4. The requested action falls outside the legal team's published scope (see §2).

A request may be **declined** (with written rationale) when:

1. Counsel determines the work would create a conflict of interest.
2. The matter requires specialist outside-counsel engagement that has not been approved.
3. Continuing would violate company policy or applicable law.

## 6. SLAs

| Lane | First-touch acknowledgment | Decision target |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Standard | 1 business day | 3 business days |
| Expedited | 4 business hours | 1 business day |
| Strategic | Same business day | Aligned with business deadline, with named counsel owner |
| Litigation / regulatory | 4 business hours | Per matter |

SLAs are working-hours commitments excluding company-recognized holidays.

## 7. Ownership

| Role | Responsibility |
| --- | --- |
| Legal operations lead | Owns this policy, the intake form, and the queue dashboard |
| General counsel | Approves policy changes; final escalation authority |
| Reviewer | Triage, drafting, redline, calibration sessions |
| Business owner | Provides complete intake, accepts/rejects fallback positions |
| Procurement / sales ops | Pre-fills intake fields where systems allow |

## 8. Quality controls

- Weekly: spot-check 10 closed matters for intake completeness and routing accuracy.
- Monthly: reviewer calibration session on disagreement patterns.
- Quarterly: refresh fallback language and policy thresholds based on negotiation outcomes.
- Quarterly: review override rate, escalation acceptance rate, and median cycle time.

## 9. Metrics tracked

- Intake completeness rate (% of requests submitted with all required fields)
- Median time from intake to first reviewer touch
- Median cycle time per lane
- Escalation acceptance rate (% of escalations counsel agrees were correctly routed)
- Override rate per template family
- Self-serve adoption (% of eligible requests handled without reviewer involvement)

## 10. Policy changes

Material changes to this policy require general counsel approval and are communicated via the company-wide legal operations channel with at least five business days of notice. Minor clarifications may be made by the legal operations lead and noted in the change log below.

## 11. Change log

| Version | Date | Author | Summary |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1.0 | _[YYYY-MM-DD]_ | _[Owner name]_ | Initial publication |

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_Source: LegalDoc.app Legal Intake Policy Template, [https://legaldoc.app/resources/intake-policy-template](https://legaldoc.app/resources/intake-policy-template)_