Safehold reduces NDA workload 50% with contract automation

By 2020, Safehold’s in-house legal team faced 70–80 NDAs per month, consuming bandwidth and crowding out higher-priority work. All NDA work was handled internally, creating inefficiencies and limiting capacity for other legal and operational projects. Senior Paralegal Bessie Takatsu needed a cost-effective way to control NDA volume without sacrificing speed or quality.

After vetting multiple providers, Safehold adopted Ontra’s Contract Automation for NDA processing. The team chose Ontra for its fit with BigLaw-experienced professionals, peer usage among other real estate companies, and pricing. Onboarding did not require new legal processes; Ontra’s AI-supported automation reduced starting each negotiation from scratch, sped turnaround, and improved consistency across agreements.

Takatsu reported that her NDA workload fell by as much as 50%, freeing time for legal billing, entity management, and compliance. Ontra functions as an extended team so she can oversee NDA work in process while reclaiming capacity for other priorities. She described a much better balance in daily workflow compared with the prior NDA-dominated routine.

• • Outsourcing routine NDA negotiation via contract automation can cut in-house workload roughly in half while preserving oversight.
• • Peer adoption in the same industry and pricing clarity can accelerate leadership buy-in for legal ops tools.
• • Freeing attorney/paralegal time from high-volume NDAs enables progress on billing, entity management, and compliance initiatives.