Legal: SOPs
Five procedures covering contract intake, the delta review, obligation handover at signature, the renewal calendar and regulatory change.
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SOP 1: Contract intake#
Run: on every inbound document.
- The agent extracts obligations, dates, caps, termination, renewal and governing law.
- It reports what is absent as prominently as what is present.
- It compares against our standard and ranks the deltas by consequence.
- A qualified person reads the deltas and decides. The extraction is never the decision.
Three working days. Slower than that and people route around the process, which is a worse outcome than a rushed review because it is invisible.
SOP 2: The delta review#
Run: per contract, by a person. Read the deltas, not the document. The deltas are the negotiation.
| Delta type | Handling |
|---|---|
| Liability cap missing or uncapped | Never accepted silently. A named person accepts, or it is negotiated |
| Indemnity broader than standard | Costed before it is accepted |
| Data processing absent | Blocking, if any personal data is involved |
| Auto-renewal | Diarised at signature, 90 days ahead |
| Governing law elsewhere | Understand the enforcement reality, not only the clause |
SOP 3: Obligation handover#
Run: at signature. The step most often skipped.
A signed contract is a list of things we now have to do. Every one gets an owner and a date, in the same session as the signature.
Most contractual failures are not disputes about interpretation. They are obligations nobody was assigned, discovered when the other side asks why a report they were promised monthly has never arrived.
SOP 4: Renewal and expiry calendar#
Run: monthly, 90 days ahead.
Auto-renewals, expiries, notice periods and price-review dates, each with an owner.
A 90-day warning makes a renewal a decision. Finding out afterwards makes it another year at a price nobody negotiated.
SOP 5: Regulatory change#
Run: monthly.
- What changed in our jurisdictions.
- Does it apply to us? A person decides, from the primary source rather than the summary.
- If yes: what must change, who owns it, by when.
- If no: record why. The reasoning is what stops the question being reopened every quarter.
Escalation#
| Situation | Goes to |
|---|---|
| Uncapped liability proposed | CFO and CEO before signature |
| Personal data with no processing terms | Blocking. Nothing signs |
| A regulator makes contact | CEO immediately, and nobody else responds |
| A contract signed without review | A process investigation, not a reprimand. It happened because the process was too slow |
| Possible customer-data breach | Immediately, alongside Security. Notification clocks start at awareness, not at certainty |