Latham & Watkins has launched a new iPhone application which provides deal lawyers easy access to a digital glossary of financial, legal and regulatory jargon, reports The Am Law Daily.

The new app, called The Book of Jargon, offers free access to more than 750 definitions of corporate and finance slang and terminology.

"Every profession has a language that it uses to exclude novices, and we really wanted to demystify some of this stuff," said Latham capital markets co-chair Kirk Davenport. "I studied solar architecture, so when I was a first-year lawyer, I had no idea what the difference was between interest rate and yield. There are all these little subtleties that you have to be in the club to know about."

The precursor to the digital glossary was a print publication of the same name that Latham first produced in 2008, which was distributed to both lawyers and clients. "I sent about 25 copies to my friends at the major Wall Street law firms and I was shocked at how many of them called me back and said, 'Can you send 50 more?'" said Davenport.

Fellow capital markets co-chair Alexander Cohen, a former senior official at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), pointed out to Davenport that Latham's summaries could be found on the desks of many SEC staff.

The idea of an iPhone application arose due to the prohibitive printing costs of distributing large numbers of glossaries.

Davenport and Cohen relied on members of the firm's IT and business development teams to transfer the hard copy into a digital application. "I've got to give them the full credit for this one," Cohen said. "It certainly wasn't me and Kirk."

Latham's business development team first looked into creating the app earlier this summer, said Kenneth Heaps, the firm's chief information officer. The tech development work was handled in-house.

"A couple of our programmers, on their own time, decided they would prototype it," Heaps said. "But once you have the appropriate technology and developers, there is still a process you have to go through to become a certified app developer by Apple."

Then there is the review process by Apple, to determine whether or not it will accept the application. "It actually took longer for them to approve us than it did for us to finish the app," Heaps added.

The firm is planning to build similar digital editions for its project finance and outsourcing manuals.

The Am Law Daily is a blog on law.com, Legal Week's US affiliate title.