Tips for Transactional Associate Forum
Forum rules
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
Anonymous Posting
Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.
Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
-
hwaya
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2018 9:07 pm
Tips for Transactional Associate
What practices have you developed to help you work faster/more efficiently? Any specific resources, programs or news website you find helpful?
-
UnfrozenCaveman
- Posts: 474
- Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:06 pm
Re: Tips for Transactional Associate
Keyboard shortcuts.
Smart find and replace usage (i.e. rarely use the automatic version but use keyboard shortcuts; think crtl + pg dn, ctrl + v).
You should get better with time as you figure out where common mistakes are made when marking up a document.
Smart version control.
Split screen in word.
Email button if you use workshare compare.
Thinking about redlines and how they can help your drafting.
Reviewing redlines carefully before sending.
Word quick access toolbar.
Format painter / Ctrl + Shift + C and Ctrl + Shift + V
Smart find and replace usage (i.e. rarely use the automatic version but use keyboard shortcuts; think crtl + pg dn, ctrl + v).
You should get better with time as you figure out where common mistakes are made when marking up a document.
Smart version control.
Split screen in word.
Email button if you use workshare compare.
Thinking about redlines and how they can help your drafting.
Reviewing redlines carefully before sending.
Word quick access toolbar.
Format painter / Ctrl + Shift + C and Ctrl + Shift + V
-
qxfr
- Posts: 25
- Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:51 am
Re: Tips for Transactional Associate
The above tips are great. Some more:
Figure out what you do a lot and make custom keyboard shortcuts and/or macros. I made macros and associated keyboard shortcuts for:
- paste special to strip formatting and trip trailing and leading spaces (this is super helpful so that cut+paste doesn't fuck up your formatting)
- type "[ ]"
- enter 10 blank spaces (useful if you do securities law)
- I added keyboard shortcuts for cycling through track changes
The redlining program we use has an option to save redlines as track changes. So this lets you very quickly create a track changes markup showing the other side's comments to a doc, and cycle through them accepting and rejecting.
Get a giant fucking monitor or two (or three), even if you have to pay out of your own dime. The amount of time and effort it saves is amazing.
Use descriptive filenames for each version of a document - this saves tons of time when trying to figure out what to redline against what. And version often. Similarly, make sure to put in dated draft lines in all your documents, and update the dates.
Read Matt Levine's Money Stuff every day. FT Alphaville is also really good. If there's some kind of daily/weekly newsletter in your practice, read that too: in leveraged finance, it's LCD.
Delegate as much as you possibly can. It makes you better at delegating, and (hopefully) it will make the person to whom you are delegating better at the work.
Figure out what you do a lot and make custom keyboard shortcuts and/or macros. I made macros and associated keyboard shortcuts for:
- paste special to strip formatting and trip trailing and leading spaces (this is super helpful so that cut+paste doesn't fuck up your formatting)
- type "[ ]"
- enter 10 blank spaces (useful if you do securities law)
- I added keyboard shortcuts for cycling through track changes
The redlining program we use has an option to save redlines as track changes. So this lets you very quickly create a track changes markup showing the other side's comments to a doc, and cycle through them accepting and rejecting.
Get a giant fucking monitor or two (or three), even if you have to pay out of your own dime. The amount of time and effort it saves is amazing.
Use descriptive filenames for each version of a document - this saves tons of time when trying to figure out what to redline against what. And version often. Similarly, make sure to put in dated draft lines in all your documents, and update the dates.
Read Matt Levine's Money Stuff every day. FT Alphaville is also really good. If there's some kind of daily/weekly newsletter in your practice, read that too: in leveraged finance, it's LCD.
Delegate as much as you possibly can. It makes you better at delegating, and (hopefully) it will make the person to whom you are delegating better at the work.
-
UnfrozenCaveman
- Posts: 474
- Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:06 pm
Re: Tips for Transactional Associate
To add to this, simple custom word autocorrect can do some of this.qxfr wrote:
Figure out what you do a lot and make custom keyboard shortcuts and/or macros. I made macros and associated keyboard shortcuts for:
- paste special to strip formatting and trip trailing and leading spaces (this is super helpful so that cut+paste doesn't fuck up your formatting)
- type "[ ]"
- enter 10 blank spaces (useful if you do securities law)
- I added keyboard shortcuts for cycling through track changes
Want to continue reading?
Register now to search topics and post comments!
Absolutely FREE!
Already a member? Login
