Legal: Templates
Four working templates: the contract delta review, the obligation register, the risk acceptance and the regulatory applicability decision.
Markdown. No sign-up, no email.
1. Contract delta review#
One per inbound document. The reviewer reads this, not the contract.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Document and counterparty | |
| Value and term | |
| Deltas from our standard, ranked | [The negotiation lives here] |
| Liability cap | [Amount, or UNCAPPED, which is never accepted silently] |
| Indemnities given | [And what they would cost if called] |
| Termination rights | [Ours, theirs, notice period] |
| Auto-renewal | [Yes or no. If yes, diarised 90 days ahead at signature] |
| Data processing | [Present, absent, or blocking if personal data is involved] |
| Governing law | [And whether enforcement there is realistic] |
| What is absent | [The most valuable row. An absence reads as agreement] |
| Reviewer | [A qualified person. The extraction is not the review] |
| Recommendation |
2. Obligation register#
Completed at signature, not later. One row per thing we now have to do.
| Obligation | Source clause | Owner | Frequency | Next due | Evidence kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [A name] | [Once / monthly / on event] | [Where] |
Most contractual failures are unassigned obligations, not disputed interpretations. A register with an owner against every row removes the whole category.
3. Risk acceptance#
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Risk | [Specifically. "Some liability exposure" is not a risk statement] |
| Worst realistic cost | [A number, even a rough one] |
| Why we are accepting it | |
| Alternatives considered | |
| Accepted by | [Someone with authority to carry it, and not the person who wants the deal] |
| Date | |
| Expires | [A date. Without one, this is a permanent decision nobody admitted making] |
4. Regulatory applicability decision#
One per regulation considered. Recorded whichever way it lands.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Regulation | [With the primary source linked, not a summary] |
| In force from | |
| Does it apply to us? | [Yes / No / Partly] |
| Reasoning | [Recorded either way. A no without reasoning gets reopened every quarter] |
| If yes, what must change | [Concrete and testable] |
| Owner | |
| Deadline | |
| Reviewed by | [A qualified person, reading the source] |
| Date checked | [Regulatory positions decay. This row is how we know when to look again] |
Using these together#
The charter sets out what Legal owns, the SOPs say when each is produced, the KPIs define what the obligation register feeds, and the workflows name who receives each output. A delta review with a blank "what is absent" row has not been done.