Presented by
Falconbury
Legal Writing and Drafting Skills for Commercial and Contracts Managers Training Course
This course will empower commercial and contracts managers to navigate legal writing and contract drafting complexities with knowledge and confidence.
★★★★★ "Despite already having a legal background, this course makes you realise how subjective drafting can... more"
- Format: Live online
- CPD: 6 hours for your records
- Certificate of completion
- Effective Management of Supply Chain Risk
- Understanding and Drafting Specifications and Scopes of Supply
- Business and Contract Law
- Understanding and Managing Contracts to Achieve Better Results
- Successful Contract Management and Administration
- Business and Contract Law
- Managing Contracts and their Performance
- Legal Writing and Drafting Skills for Commercial and Contracts Managers
- Navigating Insurance Clauses in Commercial Contracts
Course overview
Commercial and contracts managers don't usually need to write contracts from scratch, but they do have to draft new clauses, amend, or update contracts, and write legal letters. A good understanding and grasp of clear legal writing and drafting skills is essential to fulfil this element of the role.
Under the careful guidance of the expert trainer, this course will ensure you gain a comprehensive understanding of the common pitfalls to be aware of. This intensive day will make sure you’re up to date with the key areas of risk and have a full understanding of the latest drafting techniques and writing skills in clear English.
This course is also relevant for business owners and managers - well-written contracts are essential for protecting your company's interests. Business managers have valuable experience and knowledge to contribute to contracts and this can help make legal documents more precise, better-written and more effective for a company's goals.
This is a highly practical course including many exercises to help embed the learning. There will also be time during the course to ask your questions and get clarity on contract drafting and legal writing technicalities. By attending this course and enhancing your skills and knowledge you will ensure you protect your organisation against unnecessary risk and be successful in your role.
This course is part of our Commercial Management training courses series which aims to help individuals gain confidence in a range of areas surrounding contract law, and broader business management knowledge.
Benefits of attending
By attending this highly practical course you will:
- Learn how to recognise drafting inaccuracies and effectively re-draft poorly written clauses
- Draft effective standard clauses that can be used across the organisation to manage exposure to legal risk
- Understand the principles of using plain English within your contracts to reduce uncertainty
- Discover how to avoid over-complex sentences and structures to limit the risk of dispute
- Develop more effective legal writing skills that can be used in all your legal and business communications
Who should attend?
This course has been specifically designed for Commercial and Contract Managers who need to draft, amend or update contracts and write legal letters but don’t have a legal background.
The content is also relevant for business owners and managers who want to understand how to protect their businesses through well-written contracts and legal correspondence.
This course will cover:
Guidelines to writing/drafting contracts in clear English
- How to structure clauses
- Using the language of obligation and discretion accurately: shall, may and must
- Avoiding old-fashioned language
- Effective use of provisos and exceptions (e.g. ‘provided that’ and ‘notwithstanding’)
- Avoiding ambiguity
PRACTICAL EXERCISE: Redrafting clauses in clear English
During this practical session, participants will apply the principles above to redrafting a range of clauses from international commercial agreements. Both individual and group work exercises will be undertaken with results reviewed in a group forum and constructive feedback and guidance supplied by the expert trainer.
Legal correspondence: writing emails and letters with precision and clarity
- Different types of written communication and their appropriate use
- Examples of standard opening and closing
- Differences between semi-formal and informal register
- Structuring a letter of advice
- Differences between British and American English
PRACTICAL EXERCISE: Drafting emails with precision and clarity
The participants will apply the principles above by redrafting a badly written piece of legal correspondence under the guidance of the expert trainer.
Advanced contract drafting practical exercise
With guidance from the expert trainer, participants will be working in small teams to draft a number of clauses from scratch based on written instructions taken from a case study agreement and a commercial lease.
Legal vocabulary
There will be a series of exercises to develop the knowledge of the participants of legal vocabulary.
Alan Simmons
Consultant
Alan Simmons LLB (Hons) in Law with French , LLM in International Human Rights Law, RSA CETEFLA. Alan is a highly experienced trainer of legal English who has been working with international lawyers across the globe for nearly 30 years. He shares his expertise by delivering legal and business skills and language training to lawyers, other professionals and businesspeople to enhance their skills at drafting concise and watertight contract clauses in the English language.
He qualified as a solicitor in England having studied law in the UK, Strasbourg and the European University Institute in Florence and then went on to train as a solicitor in an international law firm. He spent some years practising commercial law in law firms in London in the areas of corporate law, construction law, employment law, intellectual property, advertising and media law.
He is fluent in French and Portuguese and has good written and spoken Spanish, Italian and Albanian. He has completed legal translations from French, Spanish and Portuguese and he also has conversational German, Japanese, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Romanian. His passion for different writing systems in languages means he has learnt to read and write Hindi, Persian, Japanese and Arabic.
He has used his skills and experience to successfully train legal staff from junior counsel to judges in all elements of international commercial law across the world. Alan is a dynamic trainer and applies a highly interactive style to ensure complete understanding and an enjoyable learning experience.
NEW higher discounts for multiple bookings - bring your colleagues to make your training budget go further:
- 30% off the 2nd delegate*
- 40% off the 3rd delegate*
- 50% off the 4th delegate*
Please contact us for pricing if you are interested in booking 5 or more delegates
26 February 2025
Live online
09:00-17:00 UK (London) (UTC+00)
10:00-18:00 Paris (UTC+01)
04:00-12:00 New York (UTC-05)
Course code 14404
- GBP 499 599
- EUR 719 859
- USD 823 979
Until 22 Jan
- 1 day live online training
- Browser-based, no download usually required
- See presenters and interact with fellow attendees
- Download documentation and certification of completion
- Fair transfer and cancellation policy
Not ready to book yet?
for 7 days, no obligation
27 June 2025
Live online
09:00-17:00 UK (London) (UTC+01)
10:00-18:00 Paris (UTC+02)
04:00-12:00 New York (UTC-04)
Course code 14783
- GBP 499 599
- EUR 719 859
- USD 823 979
Until 23 May
- 1 day live online training
- Browser-based, no download usually required
- See presenters and interact with fellow attendees
- Download documentation and certification of completion
- Fair transfer and cancellation policy
Not ready to book yet?
for 7 days, no obligation
2 October 2025
Live online
09:00-17:00 UK (London) (UTC+01)
10:00-18:00 Paris (UTC+02)
04:00-12:00 New York (UTC-04)
Course code 14968
- GBP 499 599
- EUR 719 859
- USD 823 979
Until 28 Aug
- 1 day live online training
- Browser-based, no download usually required
- See presenters and interact with fellow attendees
- Download documentation and certification of completion
- Fair transfer and cancellation policy
Not ready to book yet?
for 7 days, no obligation
* Early booking discounts may not be combined with other discounts or offers. As such, the discounts for 2nd/3rd/4th delegates are based on the full price; and apply only when booking multiple delegates on the same date.
Reviews of IPI's Legal Writing and Drafting Skills for Commercial and Contracts Managers training course
Despite already having a legal background, this course makes you realise how subjective drafting can be and ways to improve. I got constructive feedback for all the clauses I had drafted and found one to one feedback via email a good way of learning.
Overall, I found this course to be very helpful and have recommended it to my colleagues also.
Oct 3 2024
Isha Mirza-Bari 
Senior Contracts Specialist and Solicitor, Simbec Orion
United Kingdom
- Chelton Limited
- Derbyshire Aggregates LTD
- Royal College of Radiologists
- SG CIVIL ENGINEERING LTD
- Simbec Orion
- The Royal College of Radiologists
Norway
- Kongsberg Gruppen ASA
Run Legal Writing and Drafting Skills for Commercial and Contracts Managers Live online for your team
1 day
Typical duration
Pricing from:
- GBP 450
- Per attendee, based on 10 attendees
- Course tailored to your requirements
- At your choice of location, or online
We can customise this course to your requirements and deliver it on an in-house basis for any number of your staff or colleagues.
Contact our in-house training experts Aleksandra Beer and Yesim Nurko to discuss your requirements:
