For trainees and junior lawyers · English law

Corporate Governance

An outside investor makes a family food company run a proper board, and the first year tests the new rules. You are the company's junior in-house lawyer.

How a company’s board decides, taught through one board’s first year under its own written rules.

A board table drawn from straight above, its ends running out of the picture. Four chairs are pulled in to their places, each with a notepad and a glass of water; on each notepad the agenda is a single line, and one notepad lies askew with a pencil on it. At the fifth place there is no chair: an open laptop stands on the table, its keyboard toward the room and its screen turned to face the Chair across it, its cable trailing off the edge, a glass of water poured beside it all the same. In the middle of the table, between the Chair and the laptop, lies one chilled pasta tray, a foil tray with five pieces of penne in it, inside a zip-sealed sample bag with a blank label, beside a water jug. To one side, at a smaller desk, the minute book lies open: grey lines of earlier minutes, and on the right-hand page one line in copper, just written, with the pen beside it.

You will be able to:

  • Tell which decisions belong to the board and which to managers
  • Explain what each director owes the company, and how to prove it
  • Check that a meeting can decide, and keep a record that holds

10 chapters with tests · a final exam · a certificate · about 4 hours in all · published 17 September 2026

Start Chapter 1

Chapters

Module 1

The Board and the Rules

Module 2

Duties

Module 3

Running the Board

Module 4

When It Matters

One case runs through every chapter: a family food company takes in an investor and runs its board by written rules for the first time. Read the full board charter →

Glossary: every term in plain English · Final exam: 30 questions, open book