Key Takeaways:
- Contract intake forms create order out of chaos and keep legal running smoothly.
- A well-designed form bridges the gap between legal and the business, making collaboration faster and smarter.
- Intake data can support everything from AI investments to team capacity management.
It’s a familiar scene for legal teams. Overflowing email inboxes, half-baked contract requests missing critical details and a constant risk that an important request will slip through the cracks.
But what if I told you the fix is simpler than you think?
Enter the humble intake form.
In fact, here is a real-life story.
Last year, a legal team I work with introduced a simple intake form using ASANA to bring order to their legal requests. Over the course of the year, it quickly became a single source of truth for new work, cutting out endless email requests and ensuring the right details were captured from the start.
The real payoff? They could see exactly how many requests they were receiving for particular tasks. Turns out, 58% of all legal requests were for contract reviews. That data gave them the numbers they needed to build a clear business case for investing in the adoption of AI contract review software.
It is no wonder I hear that implementing an intake form is often the first thing a new GC or senior legal hire does.
A contract intake form is not just a form. It is a simple way to bring structure and visibility to legal work. It is the foundation for better decisions, stronger data, and a healthier, more strategic legal function.
The Power of a Great Intake Form (and why they are often priority #1)
Intake forms are not just about getting the right information from the business. They are about setting your legal team up for success, day in and day out, by kicking off the contract management process with a strong start.
Here is how contract intake forms transform how legal works:
- Builds a single source of truth: No more digging through email chains to find the legal request. Intake forms create a single point of record – a home for all new and past work.
- Provide consistent, structured information every time: Intake forms make sure you get the initial information you need, every time. Not an email here, a spreadsheet there or a missing context altogether.
- Create a powerful data set: Intake data shows what is coming through the figurative legal door – helping you spot trends, identify bottlenecks and back up future resourcing, tech investments or process improvements.
- Enables smarter triage: You can quickly spot what is urgent and complex and allocate resources accordingly.
- Reduces burnout: When you stop chasing missing details, you can spend more time on work that actually matters.
What Tools to Use
Building a contract intake form doesn’t have to be hard or expensive. Tools like Google Forms and Microsoft Forms are free, easy to set up, and can integrate well with your existing systems.
If you are looking for something with smarter workflows and the ability to generate better reporting, there are a myriad of other low-cost options such as Jotform, ASANA and Airtable.
How To Capture the Right Information
The biggest mistake with intake forms? Trying to gather everything under the sun. The key is to focus on what you actually need to triage the request and move it forward. This might include:
- Who is making the request: Name, role and department
- What the request is for: Contract review or legal advice
- The purpose of the request: Is it tied to a strategic initiative or business-as-usual?
- Deadlines or timing considerations: When they need it by?
- Supporting documents: Draft contracts, proposals, statements of work
Think about the questions you usually ask after a legal request lands in your inbox. If it is always the same questions, those fields belong in your intake form!
How to Get the Business Using It?
Creating an intake form is one thing, but getting the business to actually use it is another.
Here is what has worked for me (and what I would suggest for anyone starting out):
- Make it easy to find
Put the intake form link in your team’s email signatures, the business’ intranet page and Legal’s FAQs. If it is not easy to access, it won’t get used.
- Keep it simple
Nobody loves forms so keep it short, clear and user friendly. A little personality never hurts.
- Explain the why
Use short, smart comms (or a quick 101 session) to show the business how the form speeds up triage, reduces back and forth and makes sure their request doesn’t fall through the cracks.
- Ask for feedback
Check in with your users. Is it working? Anything missing? Adapt as you go. A form that’s built with the business, not just for them, will always get better uptake.
The Bottom Line: Small Changes = Big Wins
Intake forms are one of the easiest – and most overlooked – ways to make legal easier to work with and to build confidence in your team.
If your legal team doesn’t have a contract intake form yet and it is looking for ways to improve operations, start there. It is a quick win that pays off in so many ways.
For more practical legal and contract management tips, check out my LinkedIn newsletter, The Low-hanging Fruit.
