What is the work expected out of an A0 and A1 in a capital markets team? Just got placed in cap mark team but have no idea on how the work goes. Please don’t judge me on this because they recruited me on my grades, what laws should I be well versed with? In a nutshell, how to be ready for a practical experience and not embarrass myself.

Thank you

Business chapter diligence (not really legal work - don't think we are competent to do it anyway), non business chapters drafting and diligence (capital structure, litigation, management, indebtedness, approvals etc - refer any drhp for better context), working on company resolutions dockets, lender consent trackers, standard certificates (given by companies to bankers), some run of the mill agreements (won't be given important ones early on). Mind you, most work includes standard form drafts which you mostly clean up/make changes but also involves getting comments from parties (who despite working frequently with each other somehow still have new and different comments on different transactions) and haggling often over quite unimportant stuff. Bankers, who are a class among themselves, seem to outsource all the boring bits to us.

Also, i don't know if it's just my team but have a feeling cap marks lawyers don't really mentor and train well. Negligible interaction with partners who have better things to do, and some of the other seniors (not all!) who cannot be bothered with even discussing the assignment properly once unnecessarily make life harder. Add to this, you'll be put on so many transactions you probably will often be clueless and confused.

I don't mean to discourage anyone but just want to share my experience in the first year.