Latham Releases iPhone App Defining Wall Street Jargon, Has More in the Works
If you are flummoxed by Wall Street terms such as “bear hug letter” and “accordion feature,” Latham & Watkins has a free app for you.
The law firm has released its US Book of Jargon, a new iPhone app that defines more than 750 Wall Street terms, including slang phrases used by finance professionals and acronyms used to describe government regulations, according to a press release. The Am Law Daily and the New York Times DealBook blog have stories.
The press release quotes Kirk Davenport, global co-chair of the firm’s capital markets practice group, who calls the app “by far the coolest thing we have ever done.”
The app is a digital version of a popular 2008 hard-copy publication distributed to lawyers and clients, the Am Law Daily says. Latham wanted to send a copy to every junior banker and lawyer in Manhattan, but decided the printing costs would be too high. The app was deemed a better and cheaper way to distribute the jargon book.
DealBook tried out the app and found terms such as “Rule 144a offering,” but was unable to find “au courant” jargon such as “collateralized debt obligation” and “credit default swap.”
Davenport told the Am Law Daily that more apps are in the works for project finance and outsourcing manuals. “It remains in our benefit to be the thought leaders,” he said. “We hope that when a young associate at Cravath is given a research project, he’ll look to Latham to see whether it’s been done before.”
