Legal Skills for Non-Finance Managers Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Operational Managers, Procurement Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-L-037

Before you join: Participants should have experience managing projects, suppliers, customers, staff, budgets or operational activities where agreements and policies affect decisions.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Managers routinely make decisions with legal consequences before a lawyer sees the issue: accepting supplier terms, approving a variation, sharing customer data, managing poor performance, or responding to a complaint. Small wording changes can alter payment rights, liability exposure, ownership of work, termination options and regulatory duties. This course helps non-lawyers recognise the legal questions behind operational decisions, gather the right facts and involve legal advisers at the right point.

Participants learn how contracts are formed and interpreted, how to read key clauses, and how to identify obligations, risks and decision rights. The course covers contractual authority, scope and acceptance, payment, warranties, indemnities, liability limits, confidentiality, intellectual property, data protection, employment issues, compliance duties and dispute handling. Participants practise the IRAC method to analyse legal issues, use clause-based risk reviews, and prepare clear instructions for internal or external counsel.

Teaching combines focused briefings with contract extracts, supplier and customer cases, employment scenarios, negotiation simulations and structured group analysis. Cases reflect the types of issues faced by banks, public bodies, NGOs, project teams, procurement functions and corporate managers. Each participant leaves with a practical legal decision toolkit containing a contract review checklist, issue-escalation brief, authority map, data-sharing checklist, dispute response plan and personal application plan.

The course is suited to managers who work with contracts, people, customers, suppliers, regulated activities or commercially sensitive information. It does not turn participants into lawyers. It builds informed judgement, clearer communication with legal teams and disciplined handling of legal risk within delegated responsibilities.

What you will be able to do

  • Apply the IRAC method to identify legal issues, facts, rules and actions
  • Review commercial contracts using a clause-based risk assessment checklist
  • Draft clearer scopes, acceptance criteria and change-control provisions
  • Assess authority, liability, indemnity and termination risks before approval
  • Prepare legally useful instructions and escalation briefs for legal counsel
  • Manage confidentiality, intellectual property and personal-data obligations
  • Handle workplace concerns using documented, fair and proportionate procedures
  • Develop an action plan for improving legal risk controls in a business area

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater confidence reading contracts before accepting operational commitments
  • Clearer judgement about when a matter needs legal review
  • Stronger ability to challenge unclear scope, liability and payment terms
  • More effective communication with lawyers, procurement and senior approvers
  • Practical evidence for managing legal and compliance responsibilities

For your organisation

  • Fewer unauthorised commitments and poorly documented commercial changes
  • Earlier identification of contractual, employment and data-handling risks
  • Better quality instructions to internal and external legal advisers
  • More consistent contract administration across projects and supplier relationships
  • Reduced avoidable disputes arising from unclear obligations and approvals

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can identify legal issues, distinguish applicable sources of law and frame questions for escalation.

  • Sources of law, court hierarchy, and binding versus persuasive precedent
  • Distinguishing statutes, regulations, common law, and contractual obligations
  • IRAC method for structuring legal issue analysis and escalation
  • Identifying facts, assumptions, unknowns, and legally material questions
  • Authority limits, delegated powers, and consequences of unauthorised commitments
  • Legal advice boundaries and effective instructions for external counsel

Participants can assess whether a contract has formed and identify the terms requiring clarification.

  • Offer, acceptance, consideration, intention, and capacity in contract formation
  • Battle of the forms and controlling terms analysis
  • Drafting scope, deliverables, milestones, and acceptance criteria without ambiguity
  • Payment clauses covering invoicing, withholding, interest, and disputed amounts
  • Change-control procedure linking variations, approvals, price, and schedule
  • Contract hierarchy clauses resolving conflicts between specifications and schedules

Participants can review key risk clauses and identify matters needing negotiation or legal advice.

  • Warranties, representations, and conditions: different legal consequences explained
  • Indemnities analysed by trigger, scope, defence control, and exclusions
  • Limitation of liability clauses using caps, carve-outs, and exclusions
  • Force majeure, hardship, and relief events affecting performance
  • Termination rights, cure periods, exit obligations, and survival clauses
  • Risk register entries linked to contractual owner and response action

Participants can prepare a structured contract position and obtain appropriate approvals before commitment.

  • Negotiation mandate defining acceptable positions, fallbacks, and approval thresholds
  • Red-flag clauses requiring legal review before signature or renewal
  • Reservation of rights wording during operational correspondence and meetings
  • Documenting agreed changes through signed amendments and variation orders
  • Signature blocks, execution formalities, and electronic signature controls
  • Approval matrix mapping financial, contractual, and policy decision rights

Participants can protect confidential information and identify ownership issues in business arrangements.

  • Confidential information definitions, exclusions, permitted use, and disclosure controls
  • Non-disclosure agreements compared with confidentiality clauses in principal contracts
  • Intellectual property ownership: background materials, foreground works, and licences
  • Assignment, licence, moral rights, and subcontractor ownership risks
  • Open-source software obligations under permissive and copyleft licences
  • Information classification and need-to-know access controls for project materials

Participants can identify personal-data risks and apply basic controls to data-sharing decisions.

  • Personal data, special-category data, and lawful processing purposes
  • Controller and processor roles within service and outsourcing arrangements
  • Data processing agreements covering instructions, security, and subprocessors
  • Data minimisation, retention schedules, and access-control requirements
  • Breach response steps: containment, evidence preservation, notification, and communication
  • Privacy impact assessment triggers for new systems and data uses

Participants can recognise employment-law issues and follow fair, documented management processes.

  • Employment status distinctions: employee, worker, contractor, and consultant
  • Recruitment decisions avoiding discrimination and unsupported selection criteria
  • Performance management records using objectives, evidence, feedback, and review dates
  • Disciplinary investigations separating allegations, evidence, findings, and sanctions
  • Grievance handling, confidentiality, impartiality, and protection from retaliation
  • Managing absence, flexible work, and reasonable adjustment requests

Participants can recognise compliance duties and respond appropriately to suspected misconduct.

  • ISO 37301 compliance management system principles and management responsibilities
  • Anti-bribery controls covering gifts, hospitality, intermediaries, and facilitation payments
  • Conflict-of-interest declarations, registers, recusals, and decision documentation
  • Competition-law warning signs in competitor contacts and trade association meetings
  • Whistleblowing channels, non-retaliation duties, and evidence-preservation requirements
  • Three Lines Model roles for management, risk, compliance, and audit

Participants can preserve rights, respond to disputes and assemble a useful legal case file.

  • Early dispute assessment using facts, contract rights, remedies, and evidence
  • Without prejudice communications and settlement discussion boundaries
  • Notice clauses: deadlines, delivery methods, recipients, and proof
  • Evidence preservation covering emails, records, meeting notes, and metadata
  • Mediation, arbitration, and litigation: selection criteria and practical differences
  • Claim file structure linking chronology, documents, losses, and correspondence

Participants can apply course methods to a current business issue and plan improved legal controls.

  • Decision checklist combining authority, contract, compliance, and evidence questions
  • Escalation brief stating issue, facts, options, recommendation, and urgency
  • Stakeholder map identifying legal, finance, procurement, HR, and accountable executives
  • RACI matrix for contract administration and post-signature obligations
  • Action plan prioritising policy changes, training needs, and control improvements
  • Personal commitment statement for applying legal risk disciplines after training

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. IRAC legal issue-analysis template
  2. Contract clause risk-review checklist
  3. Contract negotiation mandate template
  4. Legal escalation brief template
  5. Data-sharing due-diligence checklist
  6. Legal risk action plan

Who should attend

  • Operational Managers — make daily decisions involving contracts, staff and suppliers
  • Procurement Managers — negotiate terms, manage suppliers and approve variations
  • Project Managers — control scope, acceptance, change and delivery obligations
  • Sales and Account Managers — manage customer commitments, confidentiality and contract changes
  • HR Managers — handle employment issues, investigations and disciplinary processes
  • Programme Managers — oversee delivery risks, governance duties and stakeholder commitments

Skills and tools covered

Contract risk reviewLegal issue analysisCommercial clause draftingRegulatory compliance awarenessDispute escalationLegal counsel briefing

Tools and standards

IRAC method, ISO 37301, Three Lines Model, RACI matrix

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish legal principles, followed by contract extracts, case analysis, group discussions and decision simulations. Participants examine supplier, customer, employment and data-sharing scenarios, identify material facts, apply the IRAC method and decide what should be negotiated, documented or escalated. Facilitated peer review tests different responses to the same problem. Individual application planning links course methods to current contracts, policies and approval routes.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience managing projects, suppliers, customers, staff, budgets or operational activities where agreements and policies affect decisions. Familiarity with their organisation's approval process, standard contracts or internal policies is useful, but not essential. No legal qualification, law degree or previous formal legal training is required. Participants do not need to memorise legislation. The course assumes willingness to read short contract extracts, analyse realistic scenarios and discuss how legal issues should be escalated within their own organisation.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

No. The course is designed for managers who make or influence decisions with legal implications but are not lawyers. Familiarity with contracts or internal policies is useful, yet no formal legal study is expected.

Bring examples of the types of contracts, approvals, policies or recurring issues you handle, provided they can be discussed without disclosing confidential information. A laptop or tablet is useful for recording notes and completing the application plan.

It suits operational, procurement, project, sales, HR and programme managers who manage commercial commitments, staff issues, information or regulated activities. It is also useful for managers newly given contract approval or supplier-management responsibilities.

Contract management courses focus mainly on administering agreements after signature, including performance, milestones and supplier governance. This course has a wider remit: contract formation and risk, plus employment, data protection, intellectual property, compliance and dispute handling.

You will use the contract review checklist, escalation brief and decision checklist when reviewing commitments or raising issues with legal advisers. The final module converts a current workplace issue into specific actions, owners and control improvements.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing about 6.5 contact hours daily. The five days progress from legal foundations and contracts to information, employment, compliance, disputes and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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