Have JuristIQ build the step paper

Beta Holding A/S is acquiring Delta ApS through a new BidCo, with acquisition financing and a merger afterwards. The client and the bank want a step paper: the group as it is today, then one slide per step to the structure at the end. JuristIQ can draw it for you in the structure, one step at a time, while you check each slide as it lands.

Two questions decide how you run it. What do you have of today's structure? A picture of the current chart, the deal documents, or only what you know. And do you want to approve every step, or read them afterwards?

Ask for the step paper

1. Open the structure in the matter and click the JuristIQ button (the sparkle icon; its tooltip reads JuristIQ) with the controls on the canvas. The panel opens on the right.

2. Describe the transaction in your own words and send it: who acquires what, through which entities, how it is financed and where the group should end up. "Make a step paper for Beta Holding A/S acquiring Delta ApS through a new BidCo ApS, with the acquisition loan pushed down and BidCo merged into Delta afterwards."

Tell JuristIQ where the group starts

When it needs to know, JuristIQ first asks what the structure looks like today.

1. Drop a picture of the current chart on the card, where it says Drop a picture of the structure, or the documents that describe the deal. A PNG or JPEG picture is rebuilt as boxes you can edit, on a slide of its own. Documents such as the term sheet, the client's email or the existing deck are read for who holds what.

   

2. If you have nothing to attach, write it under Or describe what it starts from: "Beta Holding A/S owns 100% of Gamma ApS and 60% of Epsilon AB; Sigma Capital owns the other 40%." JuristIQ may also offer other ways to start under Or start it another way.

3. Click Send. If there is truly nothing to go on, click I have nothing to attach.

Check the steps before anything is drawn

JuristIQ proposes the steps. The structure it starts from is the first row, Built first, before the steps.

1. Read the list as you would a first draft of the step paper. Are the steps in the right order, is each one a single legal act, is anything missing?

2. To change it, click the pencil (Edit steps). Rewrite a step's title or description, use Move up and Move down, Remove step, or Add step. Click Done editing when the list is right.

3. Choose how the paper is built with the Mode button beside the build button:

   Mode	What it does	When to choose it
   Manual	Waits for you to approve each step before building the next.	A new kind of transaction, or one where a mistake in an early step would carry through.
   Auto	Builds every step without asking and shows a summary of each.	A familiar structure where you would rather read the finished slides.

   

4. Advanced settings holds the slide layout the steps are built on. It starts on the standard layout, which suits a step paper; change it only if the firm's template has a better one.

5. Confirm the steps with the build button.

Review each step on its slide

In Manual, JuristIQ builds one step and waits.

1. Read the card: where the step sits in the paper, its title and what happens in it. Click View slide to see the slide on the canvas.

2. If the slide is wrong, open Anything to change?. Tick the corrections JuristIQ suggests, or write your own ("Sigma Capital should keep its 40% in Epsilon AB"), and click Send changes. JuristIQ redraws this slide and asks again; the card is marked Revised.

   

3. When the slide is right, approve it, and JuristIQ builds the next step. Once the first steps look right, Approve the rest without asking approves this one and builds the rest without stopping.

If the card warns that the step may not have been built completely, compare the slide with the step's description before you approve it.

Follow a paper built in Auto

In Auto, each step's card is a summary marked Built without review, with View slide to open it.

• A card that says Part of this step may be missing from the slide. Check it. needs the same check as above.
• To take over again, click Review the rest on the latest card. The next step will wait for your review.

If JuristIQ offers a structure from the library

When there is a structure in your firm's library that fits, JuristIQ may offer a short list of them instead of drawing from scratch. Point at an option, or move to it with the keyboard, to see the whole deck slide by slide before you choose. If none of them fits, describe what you want under None of these?.

Tips from practice

• Get step 1 right before going on. Every later step is drawn on top of the one before, so a wrong holding in step 1 is wrong on every slide after it. Manual mode for the first steps, then Approve the rest without asking, is a good pace.
• Check every step marked incomplete. One missing relationship still looks plausible on a slide.
• Give JuristIQ the firm's way of writing step papers once. An admin can set standing instructions for Step Paper, on how transactions are split into steps and how each step is written; see give JuristIQ the firm's standing instructions.
• Finish the slides yourself. The paper is ordinary slides in the structure: rename them, add text and a table of contents as in build a step plan for a reorganisation.

Have a step paper from an earlier deal that fits? Adapt a step paper from a precedent instead.