Commercial Contract Fundamentals
Review and Draft Commercial Contracts Effectively and Efficiently
Location & Start Date
Online
Self-PacedCourse Launch
January 21, 2025
Content Access: Participants are provided with a 10-week recommended schedule but have access to the course content and platform for one year from the program start date.
Time Commitment: ~30 hours
Who Should Participate
Anyone interested in reviewing, drafting, and negotiating commercial contracts more effectively and efficiently, or acquiring knowledge that can lead to a career in commercial contracts, including:
- Current and prospective commercial contract professionals
- Attorneys
- Procurement and operations professionals
- Legal tech product managers
- Due diligence consultants
- Business development and sales managers
Course Structure
Lectures
The course consists of nine modules, which include:
- A series of 15- to 20-minute structured videos that include lectures and slides with visual presentations and sample contract clauses.
- Interviews with industry experts who share their views on hot topics and the day-to-day life of a general counsel, a commercial contract attorney, and an intellectual property attorney.
- A self-graded quiz with approximately 15 questions.
Format
This course is “asynchronous,” meaning that students can work at their own pace. We suggest participants set aside approximately two to three hours per week to complete the assigned material. While a syllabus is provided to guide the learning journey, students will have the flexibility to choose where to start based on their knowledge and experience.
Live Contract Negotiation Workshops
The program also features monthly contract negotiation workshops led by experienced commercial contract attorneys, Stacey Phillip and Ben Hendrick. Each session focuses on a specific curriculum topic and incorporates mock negotiations along with expert insights and practical tips. This is also a great opportunity to ask questions about the course material. These live workshops are typically held on Wednesdays at 9:00 a.m. PT (exact dates to be shared with the cohort).
Course Design
Below is a list of the course modules. For an overview of the course pedagogy and a more detailed description of each module, please request the Commercial Contract Fundamentals syllabus.
Module 1
General Information
- Terms in a Contract
- Dispute Resolution
Module 2
Term and Termination
Module 3
Assignment, Sublicense & Subcontract | CIC & ROFR/ROFO/ROFN
Module 4
Remedies, Indemnification & Limitation of Liability | Limitation of Liability Carveouts
Includes an expert interview: security and data protection as the most heavily negotiated clauses.
Module 5
Intellectual Property Clauses
Includes expert interview: What do IP and product attorneys do?
Module 6
Restrictive Covenants; NDA
Module 7
Due Diligence 101
Includes expert interview: M&A and investment due diligence.
Module 8
AI & Commercial Contracts
Module 9
Ethics and Commercial Contracts (Optional)
Includes expert interview. This module is required for attorneys seeking MCLE credit.
Instructor & Contributors
Wei Chen
Course Creator and Instructor
Wei Chen is the Chief Legal Officer of Infoblox, the leader in next-generation DNS management and security. She has over 20 years of legal experience advising businesses of all sizes on corporate governance, strategic transactions, compliance, commercial contracts, intellectual property, operations and legal innovations. Prior to joining Infoblox, Wei served as the SVP and Associate General Counsel, Strategic Transactions, at Salesforce, Inc. and the Assistant General Counsel at Sun Microsystems.
Wei founded The Atticus Project, a nonprofit organization and the curator of CUAD, a high-quality, open-sourced, AI training dataset of legal contracts with 13,000+ annotations crowd-sourced under the supervision of experienced lawyers. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Berkeley Center for Law and Business and a frequent lecturer on the topics of AI innovations in legal, including at various legal conferences hosted by TechGC and Transaction Advisors Institute, as well as law schools such as Berkeley, Columbia and Stanford. Wei started her legal career at Skadden Arps and then at Cooley. She is a sub-4-hour marathoner and an active volunteer in her community and local schools.
Benjamin Hendrick
Contributor
Ben is a practicing product and commercial attorney with more than 15 years of experience providing business-focused legal advice to companies of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 500 companies Amazon and eBay. He began his career as an M&A attorney and now focuses his practice on e-commerce, financial technology, and AI.
Stacey Phillip
Contributor
Stacey Phillip is a seasoned attorney with extensive experience in commercial law, data privacy, and technology agreements. Currently serving as Senior Commercial Counsel at Infoblox, Stacey provides strategic guidance on high value deals and leads learning and development initiatives for legal professionals. With a strong background in advising senior executives and negotiating complex contracts, Stacey has spent the past 10 years working for leading tech companies. She is passionate about the use of generative AI in the legal profession and serves as a consultant on The Atticus Project.
Scholarships
Berkeley Law Executive Education is offering a limited number of full scholarships to underrepresented members of the legal community. The scholarship application closed on October 25, 2024. Notifications were sent by October 30, 2024.
Tuition & Discounts
General Tuition
$1,500
UC Berkeley Alumni
Government, Nonprofit, and University Employees
Also applies to past participants of paid Berkeley Law Executive Education courses.
$1,275
Save 15%
Non-Attorneys
MCLE credit not provided
$1,275
Save 15%
Special Rates*
Group Rates: 5 to 9 participants (30% discount); 10 to 19 participants (40% discount); 20+ participants (50% discount). Note: Group rates are discounted off of the general tuition.
Note: If you qualify for one of the discounted or group rates, please email [email protected] for instructions to access your tuition category. Please note that we do not combine discounts.
Tuition
Tuition will cover program access for the specified time period.
Financing
If you are interested in financing this course, Sallie Mae provides competitive education loan programs for credit qualified borrowers. For more information and to apply, visit the Sallie Mae website. If you decide to pursue such financing, please submit your application to Sallie Mae first and then contact us at [email protected]. We will provide additional instructions on completing your registration.
Certificates & MCLE
Certificate Type
Certificate of Completion
Participants will earn a certificate of completion from Berkeley Law Executive Education.
MCLE
10 hours
This course has been approved for up to 10 MCLE credit hours — including 1.5 legal ethics credit hours — by the California State Bar. Attorneys from other states will need to contact their local bar to verify their own certification requirements.
Accessibility
For disability accommodation requests and information, please contact us at [email protected]. Please attempt to make your service request with as much advance notice as possible.
