Congrats—on a new buy-side deal, the fastest way to become useful is to get the deal architecture into your head before diving into execution.

1. Get oriented first

Spend 30–60 minutes figuring out:

• Who is the buyer, target, and key shareholders?
• What is the transaction thesis? Why is the buyer doing this deal?
• Where are we in the process: early diligence, IOI/LOI, exclusivity, confirmatory diligence, signing, etc.?
• What is the expected timeline and next major milestone?
• Who are the other advisors: lawyers, accounting/QoE, tax, commercial diligence, financing, consultants?
• What are the key workstreams and who owns each one?
• What does the senior team already know, and what are the open questions?

Ask for the latest CIM, management presentation, teaser/IOI/LOI if available, process letter, and any existing workplan or diligence tracker.

2. Understand exactly what your team needs from you

Because you haven't worked with this team before, don't assume their preferred workflow. Ask your immediate senior:

"What are the top 2–3 things you'd like me to own, and what does good look like on each?"

Then clarify:

• Deliverable and deadline
• Source of truth for data
• Preferred Excel/model conventions
• Whether they want you to own a workstream or just support it
• Who reviews your work before it goes upward
• Any precedent materials from prior deals you should use

This is especially important on buy-side deals because there can be a lot of parallel diligence and relatively little time.

3. Build your own deal map

I would create a simple personal page with:

The point isn't to make something pretty. It's to give yourself a mental model of the transaction.

4. Read the numbers with an M&A lens

Don't just memorize the financials. Understand:

• Revenue and EBITDA growth
• Organic vs. acquired growth
• Margin trajectory
• Customer concentration
• Recurring vs. non-recurring revenue
• Working-capital dynamics
• Capex requirements
• Debt / cash
• Management's forecast vs. historical performance
• Purchase price and valuation
• Sources & uses
• Synergies and their timing
• What assumptions actually drive returns

Then ask yourself:

"What would have to be true for the buyer to make an attractive return?"

That's usually much more valuable than simply knowing the model.

5. Learn the team's working style quickly

On your first few days, pay attention to things that aren't written anywhere:

• Who actually makes decisions?
• Does the VP want polished work or rough work quickly?
• Does the associate prefer Slack/Teams, email, or verbal updates?
• How much checking is expected before sending something?
• What formatting conventions do they use?
• What does the MD care about?
• What does the team routinely forget or scramble for?

A good rule: communicate earlier than you think you need to. If you hit a blocker, don't disappear for three hours trying to solve it silently.

6. Find a way to create value immediately

Don't wait for someone to hand you a giant assignment. Good early contributions include:

• Cleaning/updating the diligence tracker
• Building a key financial/operating KPI analysis
• Reviewing the CIM for inconsistencies or unanswered questions
• Comparing management's forecast to historical performance
• Building a list of diligence questions
• Taking ownership of one diligence workstream
• Maintaining the issues/action-items log
• Turning messy data into something the senior team can actually use

The ideal outcome after your first week is that someone can say:

"I don't need to worry about X anymore—[you] own it."

7. Your first 48 hours

I'd prioritize it roughly like this:

• Get the deal materials.
• Read the CIM / core materials once without building anything.
• Meet with your immediate senior and understand your responsibilities.
• Review the model and understand the major drivers.
• Map the diligence/workstreams and key dates.
• Identify 5–10 things you don't understand.
• Ask targeted questions rather than broad "can you explain the deal?" questions.
• Take ownership of one concrete piece of work.
• Send concise progress updates before people have to chase you.

One thing I'd particularly avoid: trying to demonstrate value by immediately producing a ton of analysis before understanding what the team actually cares about. On a new deal team, being highly responsive, organized, accurate, and easy to work with is often more valuable initially than producing something sophisticated that nobody asked for.

Absolutely. For an M&A kickoff, don't try to create a transcript. Your job is to capture what matters, what was decided, what needs to happen, and who owns it.

Before the call

• Open a fresh document with the deal name, date, attendees, and purpose of the call.
• Have the deal team / workstream list handy so you can map comments to owners.
• Pull up any existing agenda or workplan.
• Set up sections for: key takeaways, decisions, workstreams / updates, open questions, action items, key dates / milestones

During the call

Use a simple rule:

Don't write down everything someone says. Write down what changes your understanding of the deal or what someone will need to act on.

Pay particular attention to:

• Decisions: "We agreed to…"
• Action items: "X will do Y by Friday."
• Open questions: "We still need to determine…"
• Risks/issues: "The concern is…"
• Numbers: valuation, timing, thresholds, forecasts, synergy targets, etc.
• Management comments: anything that changes the team's view of the business.
• Partner/MD direction: these are particularly important.
• Dependencies: "We can't finalize X until Y comes back."
• Deadlines: especially anything not already on the formal timeline.

A useful shorthand is:

ACTION — Who / What / When
DECISION — What was agreed
QUESTION — What needs to be answered
RISK — What's potentially problematic

Don't worry about making sentences perfect while the call is happening. Capture the substance quickly.

Immediately after

Spend 10–15 minutes cleaning the notes while the discussion is fresh. Turn rough notes like:

tax — need check NOLs? maybe Deloitte — buyer wants before next week

into:

Tax: Confirm availability and utilization of NOLs. Deloitte to provide analysis before next week's diligence meeting.

Then pull every action item into one clean list:

What the partner probably wants

The best notes are short enough that a senior person can scan them in 2 minutes and immediately know: what happened, what we learned, what we decided, what's outstanding, who is doing what, and what happens next.

Don't send a 10-page transcript. A 1–3 page executive-style summary plus a crisp action-item list is usually much more useful.

One final trick: when the partner says something like "Let's make sure we…", "We need to…", or "Can someone…", your ears should immediately perk up. Those phrases very often contain the most important action items.

That changes the emphasis a bit. As a junior lawyer on a buy-side M&A kickoff, your notes should be more legally oriented than banker-style notes, while still being concise enough for the partner to use.

What to listen for

Organize your notes around these buckets:

Transaction / structure

• Buyer, target, acquisition structure
• Stock vs. asset deal
• Consideration / rollover / earnout
• Financing or other structural conditions
• Signing vs. closing expectations

Process / timing

• LOI / exclusivity status
• Target signing and closing dates
• Diligence deadlines
• Drafting / markup deadlines
• Financing or regulatory milestones

Legal workstreams

• Corporate / organizational
• Commercial contracts
• Employment / benefits
• IP / technology
• Regulatory
• Litigation
• Real estate
• Tax
• Antitrust / CFIUS or other foreign investment issues, if relevant

Issues / red flags

• Anything someone identifies as a concern
• Exceptions to the standard approach
• Known disputes or unusual contractual provisions
• Consent requirements
• Change-of-control provisions
• Regulatory approvals
• Anything that could affect signing, closing, price, or deal structure

Client / business priorities

• What matters most to the buyer
• Issues they're willing to accept
• Issues they consider deal-breakers
• Commercial points that should drive the legal analysis

Assignments

• Who owns each diligence area
• What needs to be reviewed
• Who is responsible for contacting whom
• Deliverable and deadline

The most important distinction

Don't try to capture every legal statement. Capture the conclusion and its consequence.

For example, instead of:

"The target has several customer agreements that contain provisions relating to assignment, and someone mentioned that some may require consent…"

write:

Commercial contracts: Several material customer agreements may require consent upon a change of control. Team to identify affected agreements and assess whether consents are required before signing/closing.

That gives the partner something actionable.

Be particularly careful with legal conclusions

If you're not sure whether something was actually decided, don't turn a tentative comment into a definitive conclusion. Distinguish:

• "Counsel confirmed…" → definitive
• "Team believes…" → current view
• "Question raised regarding…" → unresolved
• "Need to confirm…" → action item

This matters a lot when your notes get circulated and people later rely on them.

A good structure for your notes

• 1. Key takeaways — Five or fewer bullets covering the most important things discussed.
• 2. Transaction / process — Key structural points and timeline.
• 3. Legal workstreams — Brief notes under each relevant diligence/workstream area.
• 4. Key issues / open questions — Anything requiring further investigation or partner/client attention.
• 5. Action items — Owner | Action | Deadline. This last section is arguably the most important part of your notes.

One junior-lawyer habit that will make you look good

During the call, put a "?" next to anything you're not sure you understood rather than stopping the conversation to clarify every point. Immediately afterward, resolve those questions by checking the deal materials or asking the associate. Then make sure the final notes distinguish facts, decisions, and open issues.

And if the partner specifically said "take notes," I'd generally not try to turn them into formal minutes unless asked. Think of them as a clean internal record that helps the deal team execute.