Legal Request Intake & Triage – In-House Legal Team
The Challenge:
A medical device company’s 5-person legal team received 450+ annual legal requests via email and hallway conversations with no centralized intake, prioritization, or workload visibility. Requests were lost or delayed (15% required follow-up), response time expectations were unclear causing business frustration, and attorney workload was unbalanced with senior attorneys overwhelmed while junior attorneys underutilized. No metrics existed to demonstrate legal team value or justify resource needs.
The Solution:
Deployed Power Apps legal intake portal with standardized request forms routing via Power Automate based on matter type and complexity. Dynamics 365 case management tracked request status, assigned attorneys, time spent, and closure with SLA monitoring. Azure AI triaged requests by urgency and complexity recommending appropriate attorney assignments. Self-service knowledge base via Copilot answered common questions without attorney involvement. Power BI dashboards tracked request volumes by type, response times, attorney utilization, business unit demand, and matter outcomes.
Result:
Request capture rate improved to 98% eliminating lost requests, response time reduced from 5 days average to 2 days through systematic triage and prioritization, and attorney workload balanced improving from 65% variance to 15% variance across team. Self-service knowledge base deflected 28% of inquiries (125 annually) saving estimated 180 attorney hours, and legal team value quantified through metrics supporting successful headcount addition request. Business satisfaction with legal services improved from 71% to 89%.