About this course
A breakdown or dispute in an IT relationship usually starts with performance: with the failure of technology or staff to perform as expected. Yet contract drafters and negotiators often pay little attention to the terms governing performance: specifications for software and professional services descriptions – statements of work (SoWs). Worse, contracts regularly – constantly – include vague and uninformed specs and SoWs, opening the door to litigation.
This webinar is for lawyers and contract managers – and also for engineers, IT project managers, and other professionals drafting requirements for technology and tech services. It will cover
- SoWs and project plans for agile software development
- Creating clear IT requirements without excess technicalese (or legalese)
- Editing specs and SoWs written by someone else
- And much more ...
As usual, your instructor is David Tollen, author of The Tech Contracts Handbook, attorney, UC Berkeley lecturer, expert witness, and sought-after speaker.
Enroll and you can ask David Tollen questions (via chat) and learn the most up-to-date best practices on specifications and SoWs. You also get access to a webinar recording for 30 days after (even if you miss the live event).
Length: 1 hr. (CA CLE 1. hr)
SEPT 24, 2025 - 10:00 a.m. PDT / 1:00 p.m. EDT
An individualized certificate is generated when you complete the course.
CLE: Tech Contracts Academy programs are approved for Continuing Legal Education (“CLE”) credit in California, and we provide a CA CLE certificate (participatory for attending live webinar, self-study for watching recording/on-demand course; general credit, unless a sub-field is identified on a course’s sales page). Jurisdictions elsewhere (and professions) differ on whether students may apply individually, and if so what’s required. See here for details about CLE.
Your Instructor
David W. Tollen is one of the industry’s leading authorities on software contracts, including agreements about artificial intelligence, as well as SaaS and other forms of cloud computing. He is a sought-after speaker, and he’s been widely recognized for making complex topics easy to understand and engaging.
David is an attorney, the founder of Tech Contracts Academy, and the author of The Tech Contracts Handbook, a perennial bestseller from the American Bar Association. His experience includes teaching IT contracts at UC Berkeley Law School and work and testimony as an expert witness, as well as service as General Counsel of a publicly traded software company and as VP of Business Development for a tech startup. He began his career at Morrison & Foerster, a global law firm, and ultimately founded Sycamore Legal, PC, a boutique law firm focused on IT contracts. David's clients have ranged from Silicon Valley startups to some of the most influential companies in the world.
David graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and has degrees from Cambridge University in England and U.C. Berkeley.
David's teaching style is informal and fun. He focuses on the business issues at stake in IT contracts.
For Tech Contracts Academy's refund policy, click here. (This overrides Teachable's standard refund policy.)