See our Law Technology Buyer's Guide for our top technology recommendations.
Trial Notebook by TabLit is a trial organization app for the iPad. While there are some issues, overall I was pleasantly surprised to find it is a solid app that does a good job. If you are accustomed to working with a paper based trial notebook, you should give Trial Notebook a try. I tested it out on a recent deposition road trip and found that it is certainly worth using.
See our Law Technology Buyer's Guide for our top technology recommendations.
Voir dire is one of the more difficult aspects of trial, and it isn’t easy to do well. While the purpose and process of voir dire has evolved over the years, the mechanics are stuck in the last century.
We have a number of good apps to help trial lawyers present evidence and depositions to a jury (TrialPad, ExhibitView, Exhibit A), but most trial lawyers still use some combination of a legal pad and sticky notes or index cards for voir dire.
Surely someone, somewhere, has come up with a whiz-bang app that will let you focus on your questions and the jurors’ responses rather than the mechanics of getting your notes down so you can intelligently exercise challenges for cause and peremptory challenges, right?
When the iPad first came out in 2010, I predicted here on Lawyerist that for lawyers, annotating and storing PDFs would be one of the best uses of the iPad. In that post, I explained how I thought that lawyers would use the iPad:
(L)awyers (will) use their iPads to annotate PDF documents, something not accomplished easily while on the road using other types of devices…This ability to annotate PDFs is will facilitate tasks such as marking up a pleading or contract, making notations in the margins to a draft appellate brief, or commenting on an internal memorandum.
When you work from home, it is easy to let yourself go. I prefer to work from home, even though I still have an office, but there are tradeoffs. I get even less exercise than I would at my office, especially in the winter, and I see very few people on a typical day. And it is easy to spend an entire day glued to my computer screen with very few breaks.
I know I should make a point of exercising daily, making time during the work day for conversation with friends and colleagues, and disconnecting for part of each day. I just get distracted by what I’m working on, and never get around to it. (Kind of like when I do work at the office, actually.)
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a mention of Lift, a free iOS app designed to help you meet personal goals and form positive habits by gently nudging you and turning habit-forming into a sort of game.
Here’s how it works.
Version 2.0 of Gmail for iOS is here! The new look is great and all, but what I’m really excited about is the ability to use multiple accounts. Which means I can finally turn off all notifications on the regular mail app and move it to my Unused folder. That was one of the last few items left on my “Make iOS perfect” list. Still up: allowing me to make Gmail the default mail client.
Unfortunately, my iPhone is teasing me. It shows the update is available, but when I click Update, I get an error message saying it is no longer available. I assume this will be fixed soon, but in the meantime, getting it directly from the App Store worked fine for me.
Today, Rocket Matter released its new iPhone app. This replaces the old mobile web interface. Like MyCase, the Rocket Matter app is, unfortunately, iPhone-only, so iPad users will have to use the regular web interface. It also makes Rocket Matter the third of the “big 4″ online practice management software options with a native iOS app. None support Android or Windows Phone, yet. (Clio only has a mobile site, which means you need an internet connection and a bit more patience to access your data.)
The new Rocket Matter app is good, but the Total Attorneys iOS app that launched at ABA TechShow this spring is still tops — by a long shot. While the software isn’t perfect (in particular, because you’ll have to view upsell ads while using it), the iPad app is awesome.
I’ve been an iPhone user since the first iPhone came out and for the most part, I’ve been pretty happy with my experience. But there’s always room for improvement and I recently discovered 2 apps, the YouMail app for your voicemail and the TouchBase app for your calendar, that do just that and greatly enhance the iPhone’s native voicemail system and calendaring system. If you’re a busy iPhone-toting lawyer, then you’ll appreciate these apps since they make it all the more easy to organize and stay on top of your voice messages and hectic schedule.
See our Law Technology Buyer's Guide for our top technology recommendations.
If you would like to use your iPad for note-taking in your law practice, then PaperPort Notes, a free iPad app, may be the perfect tool for you. This is one of my favorite iPad apps, in large part because it is so versatile and offers so many options for taking notes, no matter what your needs.
I love my Android OS* smartphone. But like lots of folks, I’m not thrilled with the lack of battery life. Being not particularly tech-savvy, I started looking for a solution. What I found out surprised me.
Like any other problem common to lots of people, there are a whole lot of shams, scams and bad advice online about why your Android smartphone battery runs out before your work day is over. I’ve tried to sift through a lot of that, and I’ve found a few solutions.
Keep Reading ⇒
What if you could review a dictionary of legal terms, research statutes of limitations, look up information about visa types, investigate crime rates and history for specific crimes, as well as state and national average comparisons, get closing cost estimates, and information on square footage, home sales price, and utility prices from one iPhone app?
The original content within this website is © 2007–2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC.
