Importance of legal awareness for non legal team!

Today’s Corporate world, we do many things which might have certain legal implications. It’s not always practical to rush to legal team/lawyers before shooting each email or negotiation. There have been many instances management of organization are threatened with legal actions (See case study below). This happens mainly because the employees who are dealing with the cases are not aware of the basic legal prepositions.

One way to overcome this embarrassment is to impart basic legal training to the employees who deal with third parties. Also the that following reasons justify a short training session on the Legal for Non-Legal to be in safer side.

1) An Organization which follows the law scrupulously would always have outnumbered among the competitors;

2) The training provides the insight of basic legal principles behind the business of the organization;

3) Sensitize the employees about the applicable laws and compliance related to the business;

4) Being aware of the laws, the compliance thereto becomes easy. Employees understand the consequences of non-compliance;

5) Employees know the legal implications before entering into the correspondences with third parties;

6) It minimizes the conflicts in business;

7) It boosts the confidence of the employees;

8) Legally supported service conditions would motivate the employees to deliver their best, resulting in better productivity.

9) It’ll create safe & healthy working environment.

10) It makes the transactions with vendors, contractors or with customers smooth and foster a healthy the relationship

LEGAL for NON-LEGAL TRAINING

Why you should train your team on legal aspects who are dealing with outside vendors !?

David is working as a supply chain manager for a leading trading company. Part of his daily activities, he used to exchange several emails with his vendors. In one of the cases, a vendor raised a dispute and has claimed that it was part of the terms agreed. David explained to the management that there was noagreement executed between the company and the vendor and it was just shared through email; hence it’s not binding upon the company..!

A man-power supply agency has convinced Susan, an HR Manager of a logistic firm that they can deploy the workers less than the minimum wages fixed by the authorities with an undertaking that they are liable in case of any legal action is initiated against the company by the labour authorities; Susan was happy as she could win the negotiation on the contract price which is less than that of last years’ price. The management got a non-compliance notice from the labour authorities.

Tom was in hurry to prepare a presentation for his Manager as he needs to present it to a prospective customer group meeting fixed the 2nd half of the day. Since he did not have sufficient time for research for some data, he copied it from a research report and has reproduced it to the presentation as it is. When it was circulated among the customers, Tom’s Manager got a notice from the ‘data owner’ that he has committed an offence under IPR Laws, as he has not taken the permission to copy the data which has a registered copyright;

David, Susan and Tom are not part of the legal department. They do not have any legal acumen to understand the do’s and don’t’s under law.

what David was not aware that even an email exchange is a legally valid contract even if it is not signed by the parties in an “agreement” format.

Susan did not know that agreeing to the wages less than ‘minimum wages’ is illegal, her company (being the Principal employer) is responsible for the non-compliance.

Tom overlooked the ‘disclaimer’ in the Report he had copied from internet specifically stipulates the prior permission for using the data.

What did go wrong in the above cases?

David, Susan & Tom were ignorant about the applicable laws..!! they have violated certain laws due to ignorance and ‘Ignorance of law is not an excuse’

Whatever may be the size of your organisation its good to have a fair idea of legal bindings and consequence. Deepa Says “ every business organisation should conduct at least one legal session to educate employees on various aspect of applicable laws of the land which will save them future harassment”.

The Author Deepa Rafeeque is a Legal expert, Corporate legal trainer and public speaker who believes in sharing of knowledge to increase the legal awareness among women, entrepreneurs and startups. Deepa is the co-founder of VLegal a legal consultancy providing solutions and imparting training for corporate on legal areas. Deepa conducts many training and workshops to help entrepreneurs and Women on various aspect on Sexual harassment, setting up Start-ups and educate your employees. You could reach Deepa for legal guidance, see her complete profile click here

Importance of legal awareness for non legal team!