Business Contract Negotiation for Non-Lawyers
A focused programme on the practical mechanics of financial negotiation — structured for those who want to understand how terms, leverage, and timing actually interact in real conversations.
Module Breakdown
- Module 1: Contract anatomy — understanding what you are agreeing to
- Module 2: Payment terms, late payment clauses, and cash flow implications
- Module 3: Liability, indemnity, and what those clauses actually mean for your business
- Module 4: Termination and exit clauses — protecting yourself on both sides
- Module 5: Negotiating with larger counterparties — power dynamics and practical tactics
- Module 6: Redlining a contract — how to propose and track changes professionally
- Module 7: Case studies from real contract disputes and what went wrong
Delivered over four weeks with two live sessions per week. All materials available on-demand after each session.
About this programme
Commercial contracts contain more room for negotiation than most people realise.
This course is aimed at business owners, operations managers, and anyone who regularly signs or reviews contracts without a legal team behind them. We focus on the clauses that matter most in practice: payment terms, liability caps, termination rights, and renewal conditions. You will learn how to identify which terms are standard boilerplate and which are genuinely negotiable, and how to propose changes without derailing the relationship.
The course does not replace legal advice.
It gives you the knowledge to have more informed conversations with solicitors, to push back on unfavourable terms, and to negotiate directly with suppliers and clients on commercial points. Instructor Aoife Brennan has spent eight years in procurement and supply chain management and has negotiated contracts ranging from small service agreements to multi-year supplier deals. Her approach is grounded in what works in practice, not in textbook frameworks.
One common outcome from this course is participants discovering they have been accepting 60-day payment terms from clients when 30 days is entirely standard in their sector.