This article is written by Simran Sabharwal, Learning and Editorial Manager at Lawctopus Law School
It’s 10:00 AM on Day 3 of your internship at a big corporate law firm. You are sitting in a meeting room with the partner and a couple of associates. The partner turns to you and says “Hey! I have shared a document with you. Please fill up the blobs in the draft and top up my mail. Also, generate a redline and clean version.”
You nod confidently. While, you are wondering and completely clueless about the jargon. BLOBS, REDLINE, CLEAN, TOP UP. What does he mean?
Not too long ago, I was exactly that intern. I used to sit in meetings surrounded with extremely qualified lawyers who were technically speaking English but not in a manner that I understood. No one warned me that working at a corporate law firm meant learning an entirely new language apart from the legal skills.
But how to understand that language? While a law school can teach you to draft a contract, rarely will a law professor teach you the meaning of “blobs” or “topping up” a mail.
Simply, understand that a corporate law firm runs on deadlines and these deadlines leave little room for complete sentences. No one has the bandwidth to repeatedly say “please complete incomplete sections of the draft”. So, the sentence becomes “fill up the blobs.”
Hence, once you understand what these expressions mean, they stop sounding like a secret corporate code. This blog piece will try to make your transition a little easier. Let’s break down the most critical terms you will hear in a law firm.
1. BLOBS
Please do not consider this a science term. Simply, it means the blanks in a draft that are yet to be filled. These generally looks like [•] in a draft agreement. Whenever a crucial piece of information is pending, lawyers tend to insert a blob or a placeholder. So, next time someone asks you to “fill up a blob”, you have been asked to simply fill up the blanks in the document.
2. REDLINE V CLEAN COPY
In a 200-page document, it is difficult to read through each sentence line by line and figure out what changes have been made. Instead, generating a redline1 highlights those changes. It is a comparison between the document originally received and the document showing the changes you have made.
You can either generate a redline using the Compare tool in Microsoft Word or there are specific applications like Workshare Compare and Litera.2 A redline exists so that one can see exactly what changes have been done and review it properly.
On the other hand, a clean copy is the same document but with all of the redline changes stripped away. It looks like a final form with no visible editing.
3. TURNAROUND OR TAT
This does not mean that you have to turn around or do a dance move. Simply, this means how quickly something needs to be sent out from the moment the work has been assigned to you. Further, TAT means turnaround time, i.e., how many hours or days you have to send out a draft.
4. FULL HOUSE
When you hear this phrase, please do not think anyone is playing poker. It just means that the entire team required for the meeting is present. Generally, you will hear this term in a meeting. So, next time your partner says “we are full house from the legal team”, you know exactly what he/she means.
5. PENS DOWN OR HOLDING THE PEN
The term does not exactly mean that someone is literally holding a pen. It refers to the person responsible for the master version of the document i.e., the person who has control of the document. Hence, someone who is holding the pen means that person has the control over the document and is responsible for consolidating the changes.
Further, “pens down” means to stop working. When a client does not pay the bill, you may hear someone say that the team has been asked to put down the pens, which means that the work is being discontinued until further notice.
6. END OF DAY
This is a simpler phrase to understand. It means the end of the day. It could mean 6 PM or 11:59 PM, depending on the work hours of the team.
7. TAG ME OR LOOP ME
This is similar to someone tagging you on Instagram. In corporate language, to “tag” or “loop” someone means to include them in an email or document, usually with @name so they are aware about the conversation and have the requisite background.
Now, when somebody says, “Please loop me in on this” they are only asking you to keep them in the conversation.
8. CIRCLE BACK
This phrase simply means to return to a topic, draft or conversation at a later point, generally when more information is available or once the topic is clearer. It does not mean you are evading the topic. It is more a way of saying that this matter needs to be discussed but just not immediately.
So, next time when you hear “let’s circle back on this in the next meeting”, this does not mean that the issue will be forgotten. It means that it has been deprioritised for the moment with the intention of returning to it.
9. SOCIALISE THE DRAFT
This might sound ironic, given how unsociable or difficult legal drafting actually feels. So, to “socialise a draft” means to share it with all the relevant stakeholders i.e., your client, entire legal team or the counterparty to gather early feedback and inputs and avoid surprises later in the process.
Next time, if somebody asks you to “socialise this draft with the tax team before sending it out”, they mean to share it with the tax team and understand their initial thoughts and make sure that the firm’s view is aligned before the document moves out of the firm.
10. GETTING YOUR BLESSINGS
Now, this might sound funny. But this does not mean actually praying to God before sending out the draft. This means to obtain an approval from your manager or partner or relevant stakeholder before proceeding with a project or taking the next step.
Image 1: Guide to Corporate Law Firm Lingo
Hence, through this blog, you would have understood that none of these terms are difficult. This becomes intimidating only because of unfamiliarity. Once you understand them, most of the vocabulary is just simpler phrases dressed up in shorthand.
However, there is one important caveat. Knowing or understanding these phrases may make you more familiar with corporate lingo but the early weeks of any legal internship still involve actual work like proofreading, researching or fixing cross-references in an agreement.
Therefore, with this blog may help you decode the language of a corporate law firm, the hard skills remain equally important during an internship. Learning these phrases early in your career will not make you a better lawyer overnight. But it may ensure that the next time someone says “fill up the blobs” in a meeting, you are not sitting there wondering what on earth a blob is.3
Want to feel more confident when you step into a corporate law firm? Our counselors can help you identify the practical skills you need to become internship and job-ready.
Call us at +91 93596 84056 for a free counselling call or write to us at courses@lawctopus.com for personalised career advice.
Explore Lawctopus Law School’s 5-Month Certificate Course on Mastering Corporate Law & Freelancing to build practical skills in Corporate Law, M&A, FEMA, commercial contracts, IBC and more, alongside hands-on assignments and drafting activities.
References
About the Author
Simran Sabharwal is a Gold Medallist in Business Laws from RGNUL, Punjab, and a former Associate at Khaitan & Co. She is currently a Learning and Editorial Manager (Corporate Vertical) at Lawctopus Law School, where she teaches corporate law and practical commercial drafting.