You do not need a lawyer to create and sign a non-disclosure agreement. However, if the information you are trying to protect is important enough to warrant an NDA, you may want to have the document reviewed by someone with legal expertise.
The primary purpose of an NDA is to ensure that proprietary information exchanged during the M&A due diligence process, such as financial information, business strategies, and customer, supplier and employee lists, remains confidential and is not disclosed to third parties.
The key elements of Non-Disclosure Agreements: Identification of the parties. Definition of what is deemed to be confidential. The scope of the confidentiality obligation by the receiving party. The exclusions from confidential treatment. The term of the agreement.
Typically, a legal professional writing the NDA will complete these steps: Step 1 - Describe the scope. Which information is considered confidential? ... Step 2 - Detail party obligations. Step 3 - Note potential exclusions. Step 4 - Set the term. Step 5 - Spell out consequences.
In addition, California's STAND Act and Silenced No More Act make it unlawful for businesses to use nondisclosure agreements to prevent their employees from revealing factual information regarding sexual assaults, workplace harassment, workplace discrimination, or workplace retaliation.
I hereby undertake to treat as confidential all and any information that I receive while participating in the work of evaluating project proposals, to use this information solely for the purpose of evaluation of the proposals, not to disclose it to any third party and not to make it publicly available or accessible ...
Five other key features must be included in your NDA to ensure it's legally binding, including a description of confidential information, obligations of the parties involved, any exclusions, the term of the agreement and consequences of a breach.
If you need an NDA, looking at templates online isn't a bad place to start, but ideally you should work with a lawyer who can write a simple NDA for you or tweak the one you have. You may be able to find someone in your community who can do it for a few hundred bucks.