Insights
The discipline, before you instruct it.
Short, practical pieces written for boards, regulators, businesses and non-profits. No generic commentary: each one comes from a question the practice was actually asked, and each one ends at the service page that answers it.
The reference libraries
The two deepest parts of this site.
Not opinion pieces but working references. An email or a post can point at a single one.
The contract instrument library
Twenty-seven instruments, what each must contain under South African law, the statute behind it, and the defect that most often makes it unenforceable.
Open the libraryThe policy instrument library
Thirty-eight policy instruments across governance, ethics, finance, information, people and operations: what each does, how it is drafted, and what makes it worthless.
Open the libraryPublished pieces
14 pieces, newest first.
Every one closes at a named service page, so that if the piece has answered your question you can see immediately what the work would cost.
Section 197: what a sale of business actually moves
The employees transfer by operation of law, with their terms and their service intact, whatever the sale agreement says. What the seller and buyer can agree between themselves, what needs the employees’ representatives, and five drafting habits.
Read the piece · 6-minute readThe committee decided. The Council noted. Nobody approved.
A subcommittee that decides what it may only recommend, and a Council that notes what it had to approve, leave an organisation acting without a mandate. The cases, and five habits that prevent it.
Read the piece · 6-minute readThe operator register: the POPIA gap that is never the clause
Almost every organisation has operators it has never identified - the payroll bureau, the cloud host, the shredding company. The section 21 agreement is the easy half.
Read the piece · 5-minute readThe Exco runs the business. Who gave it the authority?
An executive committee has only the authority the board gives it. What the Companies Act and the FIC Act expect of the people who sit on one, and five documents a growing finance house should have in writing.
Read the piece · 5-minute readAfter 4 November, every new council must review its delegations
The local government elections are on 4 November 2026. Section 59(2)(f) of the Municipal Systems Act says delegations must be reviewed when a new council is elected. What the review covers, who starts it, and five questions to ask.
Read the piece · 5-minute readYour policy is not a law, so the Interpretation Act won’t fill its gaps
The Interpretation Act 33 of 1957 settles how days are counted, who may amend a rule and when it starts, but only for laws. A board-approved policy gets none of that help. Five gaps, and two ways to close them.
Read the piece · 6-minute readA code of conduct that cannot be enforced is a poster
Five questions that separate a code of conduct that binds from one that decorates the wall: authority, rules, machinery, fair process and consistency.
Read the piece · 5-minute readNinety days and counting: what a POPIA enforcement notice means for your board
The Information Regulator has given a national public entity 90 days to prove it complies with POPIA. What the Regulator actually measures, the eight conditions in plain language, and five questions for your next board meeting.
Read the piece · 6-minute readThe section 51 manual: the compliance document most private bodies still have not published
It is compulsory, it is public, and it is free to produce. Its absence is the first thing a complainant points at, and the first thing a sceptical buyer notices.
Read the piece · 6-minute readPolicies that fit: drafting internal policy that serves the organisation and survives scrutiny
Every policy has two audiences: the people who must follow it, and the person who will one day read it against you: a commissioner, an assessor, an auditor, a funder.
Read the piece · 5-minute readLegal opinions: six questions to ask before you rely on one
An opinion guides a decision on the day it is signed and defends it on the day it is attacked. Six questions any board, registrar or executive should ask before relying on one.
Read the piece · 5-minute readService level agreements: the clauses that actually get tested
An SLA is read properly twice: once at signature, and once when something has gone wrong. Five drafting disciplines for the second reading.
Read the piece · 6-minute readAmending rules and regulations without breaking them
Staying inside the empowering provision, drafting in the amending form, and writing the transitional provisions that decide who is governed by what.
Read the piece · 7-minute readDelegations of authority: who may actually sign, and how to prove it
Where signing authority comes from, what a delegation framework must contain, and why the Turquand rule protects the outsider rather than the board.
Read the piece · 6-minute readComing next
What is being written now.
Published here first, and nowhere else until they are. Nothing on this list exists yet; when a piece is published it moves up into the list above.
- December 2026 · Public procurementThe contract cannot improve on the bid
Anything promised in a technical proposal is a contractual obligation whether or not it is repeated in the signed agreement, which is why the proposal has to be written as though it were the contract.
- January 2027 · Policy draftingA review date is not an expiry date
Most policies carry a review date, and most review dates pass quietly. Passing one does not usually end the policy; it leaves an out-of-date policy in force. What a review must actually produce, and how to record it.
Start here
Have one of these in front of you right now?
A fixed-fee review of a contract or a policy you did not draft, with written advice, is R3 500. A thirty-minute scoping call is free.