Power to the People

Those of you who didn't come to the B2B show may not be aware that our first 'public' training workshop is going to be on Thursday 19th October, at Soane Point in central Reading. Although we've been providing in-house training workshops for clients and for select groups of associates, this will be the first time that Devant has advertised open training events that anyone may attend. So why are we 'going public'?

The objective of our 'Foundations of Commercial Contracts' workshop is to put contracts back in the heart of the business, where they belong. When I founded Devant, over three years ago, I had not realised just how reluctant most small and medium sized companies were to deal with lawyers. The general perception was that lawyers fees outstripped their value - to such an extent that a surprising number of companies would sign something they didn't understand rather than pay a lawyer to review it for them.

While I'm no fan of overpriced legal services, I'm equally unhappy about the way that smaller companies are put at a disadvantage by their lack of access to decent legal support. Hence the training. While we're not promising to make anyone into a contract law expert, we do promise that delegates will leave our workshops understanding what the legal stuff means to them - in practical, commercial business terms. And that they'll be able to work out when they really do need professional support. And how to ask for it! After all, there's a world of difference between handing over a 25 page contract to a lawyer and asking 'What does this mean to my business?', and asking your lawyer (or us!) 'What does this clause mean?'.

If you're able to read and understand most of the contract yourself then you can ask for specific advice and assistance - which not only saves you money, it also ensures that YOU are in control of your commercial relationships, rather than the lawyers (or the other party, which is even worse!).

So if you're not among those who have reserved their places on the first workshops (19th Oct in central Reading, 26th Oct just South of J11 M4 at Wyvols Court) then drop us an email (or call on 0118 9889672) quickly to benefit from the 10% discount that applies to these first two workshops only. There are only a small number of places left on each October session, but we will be running further workshops in November and December in case you miss these.