Contract Literacy — Plain-English Contract Education for Student-Athletes

The contracts your student-athletes will sign — broken down in plain English.

A program from Leo Mann, 30-year consumer contract attorney. Workshops, curriculum, and speaking that satisfy NCAA Bylaw 16.3.1.2 contract literacy requirements — and go further.

Student-athletes are signing contracts they cannot read.

NCAA Bylaw 16.3.1.2 requires NIL education that includes contract literacy — but the problem is bigger than NIL. In four years on campus and the decades after, student-athletes will sign leases, auto loans, employment offers, software terms of service, and eventually mortgages and prenups. Most have never been taught how to read any of them.

Existing financial literacy programs cover budgeting, taxes, and investing — necessary but not sufficient. The contract literacy piece is harder to deliver because it requires practicing-attorney expertise. That is the specific gap this program fills.

“I Agree” — the two most dangerous words you’ll click today.

The recurring premise of Leo Mann’s work — from NIL contracts to leases, loans, and life.

Four ways institutions partner with us.

On-Campus Workshops

60–90 minutes · live walk-throughs

Plain-English contract literacy from a practicing attorney. Live walk-throughs of real contracts athletes sign — NIL agreements, leases, auto loans, employment offers, software terms.

Custom Curriculum

4–6 modules · embeddable

A modular contract literacy curriculum athletic departments embed into existing life-skills programming. Satisfies Bylaw 16.3.1.2 NIL contract literacy requirements and goes further.

Don’t Sign That — Bulk

Welcome packs · team distribution

Bulk copies of Leo Mann’s plain-English consumer contract guide. Designed for student-athlete welcome packages, summer reading, or financial literacy curriculum integration.

Conference Speaking

Keynotes · panels · symposia

Speaking engagements at compliance meetings, athletic director symposia, and association conferences (NACADA, NACWAA, N4A, NACDA).

Real contracts. Real numbers. Real consequences.

Recent topics covered in The Clause — the contracts athletes will sign for the rest of their lives:

Lease clauses that cost renters their full deposit

Auto loan disclosures that hide thousands in interest

Employment offers IP assignment and non-compete language

NIL agreements exclusivity, arbitration, and termination terms

Thirty years of reading the documents most people sign without reading.

Leo Mann is a consumer contract attorney with 30 years of practice across New York, Chicago, and Silicon Valley.

He is the author of Don’t Sign That — A Consumer’s Guide to the Contracts Running Your Life (Amazon, 2026) and publisher of The Clause, a weekly newsletter on consumer contract literacy.

Tell us about your program. We’ll respond within two business days.

The contracts your student-athletes will sign — broken down in plain English.