Crafting Universal Contracts: A Legal Intern’s Tale at app.sign.online
Hi Reader, my name is Caroline Smith, and I worked with app.sign.online as a legal intern for the summer. I am sharing my experience because, as an American, I had no concept of data privacy or digital identity. It took a lot of initial research for me to even understand the GDPR, let alone how to put it into practice. However, once I understood the law and all the jargon that’s used, I really enjoyed doing compliance work! Reading the literal fine print of a company’s terms of service is usually enough to make someone’s eyes glaze over, but I enjoyed it because it felt meaningful. Knowing that everything I learned and applied had real impact made the work fulfilling.
Attorneys draft up contracts that are going to be the most beneficial to their client, whether the client is the buyer, the seller, or whatever. Because I was drafting a universal template, I had to be neutral and include clauses that benefitted each party.
After spending a few weeks researching and doing compliance work, I was able to spend some time drafting contract templates for the site. I was super excited about this project because drafting contracts was exactly what I said I wanted for my summer experience. I do think that creating templates for contracts is more difficult than drafting contracts with set stipulations because I was trying to think of every little thing. Drafting contracts already relies heavily on the ability to see potential future disagreements/issues so that remedies can be written into the contract, so drafting a universal template exemplifies that. Creating templates is also difficult because you don’t know who your client is. Attorneys draft up contracts that are going to be the most beneficial to their client, whether the client is the buyer, the seller, or whatever. Because I was drafting a universal template, I had to be neutral and include clauses that benefitted each party.
Overall, I am super grateful for my experience. I am confident that none of my peers had internships like mine, and everything I learned will make me that much more of a valuable asset to wherever I work next. I am thankful for the relationships I built with the guys of app.sign.online and look forward to working more with them in the future.
Written by: Caroline Smith (Legal Intern, JD Candidate, Class of 2025; BA Political Science)
