An iPad is not a substitute of a laptop, but it can be a great addition to your law practice.

The bad news is that the market is flooded with iPad cases, keyboards, folios, and products that claim to be all three. Even worse, many of the products I reviewed were pretty terrible.

The silver lining, however, is that there are a handful of very good to great products. Find out which products are the best fit for your practice.

The best keyboard

Truth be told, my two favorite keyboards are keyboards/cases, which is a sad reflection on many of the iPad keyboards on the market.

The Logitech Ultrathin (pictured) and the Logitech Keyboard Case for iPad 2 have great keyboards. The Logitech Keyboard Case for iPad 2 is a better keyboard, but the raised edges can get frustrating if you are typing a ton. At the same time, the keys are more comfortable and slightly more responsive.

Frankly, I don’t think you can go wrong with either keyboard. If you can get used to the raised edges on the Logitech Keyboard Case for iPad 2, it is a better keyboard. If the edges drive you crazy, there is plenty to love about the Logitech Ultrathin.

I’m giving an honorable mention to the Kensington Keyfolio Pro 2 for iPad 2. I graded it just a touch below the two Logitechs, as the keyboard is thinner and the keys are a touch undersized. On the plus side, it is by far the best detachable keyboard I reviewed. As an added bonus, it disconnects and reconnects through magnets, which is pretty nifty.

While the Kensington takes honorable mention in this category, it graded out numero uno for  . . .

The best case/folio

The Kensington Keyfolio Pro 2 (pictured) has a very nice keyboard, but it is also a folio and a stand. Hands down, it takes the cake for that type of case. The case is not the best-looking, but it is nice enough to pass muster in most situations.

What makes the case unique is a great detachable keyboard, and velcro that allow you to adjust the case to almost any angle.

Runner up for best case/folio is the Incipio Lexington. There is no keyboard, but it is a solid case/stand/folio. Unlike many covers, it also has magnets in the screen cover, so it will automatically turn on/off when you open and close the case.

You can also adjust the stand for multiple viewing angles. The biggest downside with this case is that it’s made of micro suede and upon close inspection, it looks like micro suede. At the same time, I’d much rather have a case that looks ok and works great versus the alternative.

The best keyboard and case

Hands down the Logitech Ultrathin is my favorite. The keyboard is just a hair behind the other Logitech keyboard. It’s not the only cover that attaches magnetically, but I believe it’s the only keyboard/case that attaches magnetically. A minor detail, but an important one nonetheless.

The case is very compact, but gets the job done. The only real negatives are that it only covers the screen, and the keyboard pushes up right against the screen.

That said, using this case will make your iPad almost as useful as a laptop, while still maintaining the size that makes an iPad so appealing.

The Logitech Keyboard Case for iPad 2 gets honorable mention (pictured at right). The case is bigger and provides more protection—if you live a rough and tumble life you can’t go wrong with this case. The only downsides are that it does not actually connect to your iPad—it wraps around it—and it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing. Then again, if you are using this case, aesthetics are probably not your main concern.

(photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/vectorportal/5020936842/)

The Best iPad Cases and Keyboards for Attorneys is a post from the law firm marketing blog, Lawyerist.com

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.

As it so happens, PDF storage and annotation are now some of the primary ways that lawyers use iPads in their law practices. Back when I wrote that post, there were very few apps designed for that purpose and most were not business apps. Fortunately, things have changed and there are now hundreds of apps that facilitate reading and annotating PDF documents. In this post, I’ll describe 4 of the PDF reading and storage apps most often used by lawyers.

First, there’s Goodreader ($4.99). For many lawyers, this is the app of choice for reading and storing PDF documents. Personally, I find the interface to be a bit clunky, but many lawyers prefer it since they have been using it from day 1 and it’s familiar to them. And, most importantly, it gets the job done, especially when it comes to storing and organizing PDFs. You can name documents however you choose and then file them away into folders that you create. It handles many types of files, not just PDFs and syncs with sync with Dropbox, SkyDrive, and SugarSync. And, it now allows you to annotate your documents as well.

My PDF annotation app of choice is PDF Expert ($9.99).  I find that this app offers  many of the same features as the other apps, but has the cleanest and most intuitive interface. Like Goodreader, it reads most documents types and you can easily import documents from many sources, including email attachments, your computer’s hard drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, and GoogleDocs. Once imported, you can create folders, name your files and store them away.

But the annotation features are where PDF Expert really shines. It’s incredibly easy to fill in forms by adding typewritten or handwritten text into documents, in addition to marking up documents by highlighting text or striking through words. The app recognizes blank lines inserted into documents and automatically allows you to simply input text into the blanks rather than having to choose the “insert text” setting each time you want to insert text, as many other apps do.

iAnnotate ($9.99) is another app often used by lawyers. I used this app last summer to store hundreds of PDFs of cases when I was conducting research for a New York criminal law treatise that I co-author and have to update annually. I was seeking an app that would allow my to categorize and store cases in folders by chapter, so that I could then easily locate relevant cases and review them at my leisure. iAnnotate’s easy-to-use drag and drop interface facilitated this, although I found that its annotation features were a bit clunky. But since annotating wasn’t something that was important for that particular project, the app served its intended function very well. Unlike many other apps, it only reads PDF documents and syncs with Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive

Finally, there’s ReaddleDocs ($4.99), also popular with lawyers. This app shines when it comes to reading and storing documents on your iPad. It supports PDF, MS Office (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) and Apple iWork files and you can upload and download documents to MobileMe iDisk, Dropbox, and GoogleDocs, among others. But if the ability to annotate documents and fill out forms is important to you, then look elsewhere since Readdledocs doesn’t offer those functions.

These are just a few of the many apps available for reading, storing, organizing, and marking up PDFs and other documents on your iPad. And oftentimes, which one you use is simply a matter of personal preference. So, if you regularly use an app that I didn’t mention above, let us know in the comments.

(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cwiebrands/4835491955/)

The Best iPad PDF Annotation and Storage Apps is a post from the law firm marketing blog, Lawyerist.com

In all the speculation that preceded Microsoft’s recent release of Office 2013, one of the most hotly debated rumors was that Microsoft would be announcing a version of Office for the iPad. Even with the debut of Microsoft’s Surface tablet, analysts said Microsoft couldn’t possibly afford to ignore the massive iOS user base.

They were wrong.

When asked point blank by Bloomberg Businessweek, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a terse answer to the question of when we can expect an iPad version for Office: “I have nothing to say on that topic. … We do have a way for people always to get to Office through the browser, which is very important.”

Clearly, Steve Ballmer has never tried taking his own advice. While InfoWorld notes that the cloud-based version of Microsoft Office is somewhat improved, it’s still not a really workable solution for iPad users.

The most obvious limitation of Ballmer’s workaround is the lack of off-line access. If you need to work on one of your documents while you’re without Internet access, well, tough.

And if you want to print, well, there’s a “workaround” for that, too. You’ll have to basically “print” your document to a PDF and then print the PDF.

(Meanwhile, Android users like me are just plain out of luck on all counts, since the web apps are basically unusable on the Chrome browser.)

All in all, it looks like Microsoft Office may be going the way of the dinosaur. By going all protectionist on non-Surface tablet users, Microsoft has tied itself to the shrinking PC market and is headed for irrelevance.

Users who need a better workaround than the one Steve Ballmer has offered would be wise to check out better products offered by other companies, including the popular (and still free) CloudOn app .

(photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/7118787133/)

Microsoft Says No Office for iPad is a post from the law firm marketing blog, Lawyerist.com

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?

Up until now, the jury selection apps out there are, to put it bluntly, crap. Absolute crap. They seem to have some things in common:

• Cartoonish graphics and interfaces
• An emphasis on demographics, implying that demographics are the most important factors in picking a jury
• Glorified note taking apps

I’ve checked out every new jury selection app when it comes out and not one has been worth buying. But now, there is a a new entry: JuryPad.

It’s important to know that JuryPad is not an application from Lit Software, LLC, the company that brought us TrialPad and TranscriptPad, top notch apps that have quickly become the go-to apps in their categories. So, naming the app JuryPad would seem to be a cheesy attempt to ride TrialPad’s coat tails. Personally, that strikes me as a crappy thing to do.

Now, for the app itself.

The Good

The interface is clean, simple and uncluttered. For the most part, it seems free of cartoonish graphics. The app comes pre-populated with a sample DUI trial, complete with a jury pool, basic voir dire and what they call “custom voir dire.” You have the ability to create additional sets of custom voir dire questions, which is definitely a step beyond the basic demographic questions available in most of the other jury selection applications. If you click “yes” next to any of the custom voir dire questions, these questions are displayed within each juror’s individual profile, along with basic demographic information as well as information about residence, employment and whether they are related to court staff, insurance adjusters, lawyers, medical or law enforcement personnel. All good basic information that, for the most part, is probably going to be supplied on the basic juror questionnaire most courts have jurors fill out.

It also has a feature which links the juror’s address to Google Maps. When you click on the juror’s address it launches Safari and brings up the map for their home address. I can see where this would be helpful, particularly in criminal cases where you might want to know whether the juror leaves near the scene of the crime to determine if they might have independent knowledge of the area. This would also be helpful in the same way for accident cases. You might also be able to make a judgment about the juror’s basic socio-economic status based on where they live in some jurisdictions. With Google you can even get a view of a photo of their home.

At the end, you are given a nice graphic that shows your seated jury. Just in case you forget what the lady in the back row who has been sleeping through most of the trial does.

The Bad

Well, maybe I shouldn’t say bad. More like just plain “why” on some of these things.

Like most of the jury selection apps available, JuryPad focuses inordinately on juror demographics: race, age and sex. It isn’t that these things aren’t irrelevant, it is just that, at least in the civil trial work I do, they simply aren’t the most relevant information. And therein lies the “why.” JuryPad seems to assume that this information will be very important and puts a lot of its resources, and consequently your time and focus, on demographics.

Now, particularly in criminal cases, Batson challenges based on race and sex are important. And maybe that is the focus for JuryPad: criminal attorneys. If so, then I wouldn’t be that critical. But obviously it is intended for use in all trial work.  And this information simply isn’t as important in other trials as it is in criminal trials. But the reality is most attorneys don’t focus their time on criminal trials and the nifty pie chart graphics breaking down the jury by race, gender, age, etc. simply isn’t going to be that important.

Navigation is less than ideal as well. The sample jury supplied has 60 potential jurors in the pool. That is a pretty typical size, but certainly not as large as some jury pools can get. But even navigating this size jury pool doesn’t seem like it is going to be easy to do in the heat of voir dire. The only way to access an individual juror is by scrolling through the juror list. The only way to get to your custom voir dire questions is by tapping on an individual juror. This implies that you are going to go through the list of jurors, one by one, asking them the questions on the list. If that is how it is done in your jurisdiction, then this is fine. But in many, if not most, jurisdictions, the better practice is to ask questions of the panel as a whole and then focus on the individual juror’s responses, if any.

Also, like other jury selection apps, JuryPad has only one area for notes on a given juror. And to access that note section you have to tap on the individual juror and then either tap “edit juror” and scroll down to the notes section or tap on “custom voir dire” and scroll down to the notes section. Not a big deal if your custom voir dire consists of only 7 questions, as in the sample that comes with the app. But my voir dire outlines run to dozens of questions. And simply answering those custom questions yes or no isn’t going to give me the information and detail I need in order to successfully argue a challenge for cause. No, that kind of detail is going to have to be typed into the “notes” section.

I spent a lot of time going through JuryPad thinking “why?” Why do you want to be able to record a “prediction” of which way the juror will vote? Why can you record what jurors are stricken, but not be able to come up with a list of jurors that you want to strike or strike for cause. Why can’t you edit the basic voir dire questions?

 The Verdict

At the end, JuryPad suffers from the same problems that all the other jury selection apps out there seem to have: it focuses on a simplistic view of jury selection for simple trials. They all seem to be rather glorified note taking applications. And the reality, at least for me, is that I don’t have time to type in detailed notes during voir dire. A successful jury selection app will link short notes to a detailed voir dire outline so that I can type a few words be able  to remember the juror’s answer to a question that will form the basis for that important challenge for cause. JuryPad simply doesn’t give me the tools I need to conduct an effective voir dire.

Sorry JuryPad, I simply don’t think you’ve found the answer.

Score

(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/6972691660/sizes/z/)

JuryPad for iPad Review is a post from the law firm marketing blog, Lawyerist.com

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.

Trial Notebook starts by having you set up a—surprise—Notebook for each case. That process is helped along by the aptly named “wizard” function, that walks you through the basic questions needed to set up the Notebook.

Once in the Notebook for your case, you are presented with 3 default sections: Case Document, Master Checklist, and Case Contact. You can add additional sections, which I will discuss below.

Case Document

This is where you store your relevant case documents: pleadings, discovery, documents, basically anything you will need in trial. You have the option to download files from the web, import pictures from the Photo app or record audio. However, the most likely way you will import material is the way I did: by connecting to a cloud service. Trial Notebook gives you the option of connecting to Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, SugarSync or Box. I used Dropbox and the process was flawless.  I linked to the entire file for my case, so it downloaded everything.  My entire digital file was in Trial Notebook.  In most cases, that is probably a good thing. My only suggestion here is that there doesn’t appear to be a way to download selected portions of a file. Basically, you have to chose one file as your “case document.” The glitch for me came in the form of a large number of radiology files that, while it downloaded them, were a complete waste of space because I could not link to an app to view them.

Case Contact

The name is self explanatory. This is the tab where you will store all your contact information: opposing counsel, client, witnesses, judge, etc. It links to your iPad’s Contacts application, so there is no need to re-enter information. Very nicely done and usable.

Master Checklist

The Master Checklist Section contains all the checklists and evidence sections you have added to the notebook. Basically it is a summary overview with direct access to the following, if you have created them:

Notebook Sections

On creation of a Notebook section, you are given an option to Title the Section, title the Tab and select whether the content will be a Checklist or an Outline. When you go through the process of creating the section, it will appear in the main case list, along with the Case Document, Master Checklist and Case Contact sections. When you tap on the section, the tabs you’ve created show up on the right half of your screen.

Checklists

These allow you to create checklists. You create or modify the possible “value” which you can modify.  By default, it is set up to track evidence (with “admitted” or “excluded” options) and motions in limine (with “granted”, “denied”, and “reserved” options). You can add your own checklist options.

Outline

This section appears to be intended to use to create the many types of outlines you would use in a typical trial: witness testimony, opening, closing, voir dire and others. Also included is what I would refer to as the “notes” section of the outline.This is a section off to the right of the screen where you can enter notes separate from the outline itself. I find that this is a really useful feature that would allow you to make notes during trial or deposition. Very useful indeed!

All together, I think TabLit has put together a solid app in Trial Notebook. It gives you what you would expect from an app of that name. It doesn’t have a long learning curve.

Suggestions/Complaints

My suggestions/complaints are actually few in number.

Undo

Especially in the initial stages of working with the app, I found myself wishing for an easily accessible “undo” button. It may be there somewhere, but I didn’t find it. I think this is a must.

Edit Tabs

In a similar vein, I think you need an easy way to easily edit the tab names. Particularly when you are first setting up a notebook, you may not know what you want to call a tab. And trial prep is a dynamic process. Your thought process and focus will change as you refine your case, and you need to be able to make those changes.

Two Way Dropbox Integration

As it stands now, anything you download from Dropbox isn’t linked back. So once it’s there, any changes you make in other applications won’t be saved in Trial Notebook. It appears that TabLit is in the process of adding this feature. An absolute must.

I also question the lack of basic PDF annotation features, however, after giving it some thought, I think adding these in might just make for feature bloat. PDF annotations are notoriously quirky. Annotations you make in one app may not show up when viewed with another app. And since Trial Notebook is not a trial presentation app, I doubt I’d want to use annotations that I couldn’t present.

Bottom Line

Trial Notebook is a good trial organization app. While I’m sure upcoming updates will address minor issues and add features, it is a good app as it stands. It’s pricey at $69.99, but only in the context of iPad applications. We have gotten so accustomed to the 99 cent app, that anything over $9.99 we instantly view as expensive. But in context, think about the long term value. For years (before I went paperless) I swore by Bindertek binders for case files and trial prep. I bought them in bulk because I knew they were well crafted and I could use the over and over again. At about $14 each, they weren’t cheap, but they were worth the money. Trial Notebook is the cost of just a few good binders. Easier to carry too!

Score

Trial Notebook for iPad Review is a post from the law firm marketing blog, Lawyerist.com

Ian O’Flahetry was a jury consultant long before he started Lit Software, LLC and brought us TrialPad and TranscriptPad. Apparently he got tired of watching lawyers struggle with legal pads and post-it notes to keep track of notes on jurors.

His response wasn’t an app. It was JuryNotes. JuryNotes is a simple structured paper pad system. In reality, it is simply a better legal pad and post-it note. Is this the holy grail of voir dire systems that trial attorneys have been searching for? No. But it is a solid, simple system for organizing simple data and short notes during voir dire.

Voir dire has been a hot topic here on Lawyerist in the past few weeks. We’ve looked at some suggestions on how to conduct voir dire and reviewed JuryPad, an iPad app. JuryNotes is another take on a piece of the voir dire puzzle.

JuryNotes

JuryNotes consists of a large 12″X18″ paper pad and a small sticky note pad. The large pad consists of a 6×3 grid of juror cells. Each cell contains spaces for basic demographic data, a notes section that takes up about half of the available cell and spots for quick indications regarding your general thoughts on the juror. There are also locations for indicating whether the juror was seated or stricken and by whom. The sticky notes are identical single cells that can be used to replace jurors who are seated part way through voir dire or for additional notes on a juror.

All court rooms are configured in various ways and different judges can utilize the available space in the same courtroom in different ways. JuryNotes can accommodate these configurations by joining multiple sheets together to accommodate the courtroom you are in. Not high tech, but effective.

Each jury note set comes with a large pad, a small sticky pad and a pen/highlighter combo. They well for $24.95 each, plus shipping. Could you accomplish the same thing with a large pad, a ruler and a post-it pad? Sure. And you can put together your own trial notebook rather than purchase trial notebook kits. Is it a good addition to your trial kit? I think so. JuryNotes is a simple and effective way to keep your notes on voir dire organized.

JuryNotes does exactly the same job that many of the simple iPad apps try to do–it organizes simple notes regarding voir dire. What it doesn’t do is allow you to integrate your voir dire outline and individual juror information on a juror by juror basis. But unlike the iPad apps on the market, JuryNotes isn’t trying to solve this problem. It is simple note taking system and nothing more. And it accomplishes that task well. Sometimes low tech is the most effective solution. Until someone comes up with an iPad app that does it better, this may be your best option.

Score

JuryNotes

Reviewed by Todd Hendrickson April 4, 2013

Summary: JuryNotes is a simple, effective paper-based note taking system for voir dire

Overall Score: 3.5 (out of 5)

JuryNotes: A Low Tech Approach to Voir Dire Notes is a post from the law firm marketing blog, Lawyerist.com

Why “Top 5 iOs Apps I Can’t Live Without” and not “Top 10 iOS Apps I Can’t Live Without”? 5 reasons.

1. 10 is too many. You can always come up with 6 or 7, but more than that and you are padding.
2. 5 forces you to think about it and actually leave one or two you really like off the list.
3. Duh! All the lists in High Fidelity were Top 5.
4. Actually, I can only think of 3 reasons.

So here are the five iOS apps that I use day in, day out, multiple times a day. 

Zite

Zite is an iOS news reader that is described as an “intelligent magazine” and that is an apt description. When you first launch Zite it has you enter your interests. Then it presents you with a “magazine” of articles from the web that are representative of those interests. The app notes when you launch an article and read it. You can also indicate whether you like or dislike a particular article, author or topic. The result, within a short period of time of using it regularly, is a “magazine” containing dozens and dozens of articles in multiple topics that you are likely to enjoy. The more you use it and the more you utilize the like/dislike feature, the better the “magazine” becomes for you.  It comes with multiple pre-defined categories like Business, Movies, Apple News, Gadgets, Technology, Politics and many others. You can also add custom categories. Zite is absolutely an iOS app I use almost every day.

Dropbox

The bottom line is I couldn’t run my practice without Dropbox.  At least I don’t want to try. Dropbox allows me to sync my client and other files across multiple devices: my Macbook Pro, my iPad and my iPhone and my family iMac. Like my Mac, Dropbox just works. And for me that is high praise.

Fantastical

Fantastical is a recent addition.  A few months ago this certainly would not have been on my list. Before I tried Fantastical, I didn’t realize how irritating Apple’s Calendar could be.

Fantastical is a simple calendar iOS application that syncs with and usurps Calendar. It is available for both your Mac and your iPhone. It allows “natural language” entry of calendar items. For example, it understand that if I enter “Lunch next Tuesday with Sam” to set up an appointment on the appropriate date and time.  I can preset multiple default reminders. (When Apple introduced Mountain Lion it totally castrated the “snooze” feature on Calendar’s alerts to a single 15 minute snooze. Which does you no good if you want a reminder of something 10 days before an event so that you can start prepping for it. Apple screwed that one up and at least with Fantastical I can set multiple default alerts that can make for a work-around for the snooze feature.)

My only complaint about Fantastical is that it really doesn’t have an iPad app.  Oh sure, you can install it on the iPad, but what you get is a tiny iPhone sized application. Not what you really want on your iPad. But I use both the iPhone and Mac versions all day, every day.

Kindle

A few years ago when I started on my paperless path, I realized that I needed to adopt paperless practices in my personal as well as professional life. One thing I realized I needed to do was find an alternative to traditional books. Books were taking over my house. I’m an avid reader. I am always reading something. The Kindle and iBook apps let me buy e-book versions of most new books. In fact, some books are now only available as e-books. These apps certainly help in lugging around whatever I’m reading. In the past I’d bring 2 or 3 books on a vacation. Lugging multiple books was always a pain.  With e-books, I can literally carry dozens of books with me. And my house no longer looks like a literary version of Hoarders.

Now why Kindle rather than iBook? A couple of reasons. One: Price. Kindle books are almost always less expensive than iBook versions. Two: Selection.  The selection on Amazon.com in Kindle books seems much more extensive than the iBook store. Three: Sharing. Amazon makes it possible for you to loan your Kindle e-books for short periods of time. It is also possible to simply download the e-book to multiple kindle devices or iPad Kindle apps using the same Amazon account. The logical use for this is sharing the books among family members. The sharing thing is something that Apple doesn’t do at all. At least I’ve never come across that option. For that reason, I find myself using Kindle more often than iBook.

Human Anatomy Atlas

I am a trial lawyer and I primarily represent plaintiffs in medical malpractice and medical product liability cases. Thus, I am always on the lookout for anything that will enhance my ability to educate myself and others with regard to anatomy issues. And the Human Anatomy Atlas, from Visible Body, is a great iOS app for this. It allows you to view all aspects of human anatomy, broken down by systems, such as digestive, circulatory, nervous, skeletal, muscular and others. And you can view the systems in conjunction with each other. It allows you to zoom and rotate, viewing the organ or structure from any angle. It also allows you to fade out other systems and highlight structures. It is a great tool.

I own several other anatomy apps and most limit themselves to a particular system. There are a couple that do a stellar job in displaying the skeletal system, something I find particularly useful in orthopedic malpractice cases. However, Human Anatomy Atlas brings them all together. It allows you to project to a a monitor or projector and you can e-mail yourself .pdfs to use as paper exhibits. This one app can easily replace hundreds of dollars worth of anatomy illustrations for a single trial. In the context of several trials, you’ll save thousands of dollars. One of the best apps for a frugal lawyer.

Instapaper

I find the Instapaper service and its accompanying iPad and iPhone iOS apps to be invaluable in a paperless practice. Rather than printing off web pages and articles to read later, I simply utilize the Instapaper app.  A button or tab is added to your browser and if you click on it while in a web page that article or page is then saved to Instapaper for later viewing on your iPad. If you are like me you find multiple articles every day that you want or need to review. Rather than going down the rabbit hole that can end up with you having wasted several productive hours of your day surfing the internet, click on the article and review it later. Really valuable time saving application.

That’s my top five

Wait a minute, that was six! Did you ever notice in High Fidelity that the top five lists rarely actually contained five items? While staring at the camera reciting whatever important, angst-ridden list that was called for at that point in the script, Rob Gordon would be interrupted and the list would only contain 3 or 4 items. Other times he would go on and on, apparently unable to count to five. So my Top 5 list actually contains six. I could have edited out Dropbox because it is so ubiquitous, but it is ubiquitous for a reason.  Kind of like the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in a list of Top Five Songs about Death. Just can’t leave it out.

(image: http://mixtressrae.blogspot.com/2012/12/high-fidelity-2000.html)

Top 5 iOS Apps I Can’t Live Without is a post from Lawyerist.com

Microsoft’s Surface tablet has been out for a while now, and it hasn’t exactly been setting sales records. Coincidentally (or not, depending on how cynical you are), Microsoft’s ex-CEO and current Chairman Bill Gates now weighs in on what he believes are two of the iPad’s glaring deficiencies: no keyboard and no Microsoft Office.

Does he have a point? Maybe. But only one. Not two.

Whaddya mean, no keyboard?

When I read Gates’ comment that iPad users miss having a keyboard, I had to laugh. First, it’s not like there aren’t a ton of aftermarket keyboards out there. And as Sam will tell you, it is possible to do touch typing on even the screen keyboard. Granted, it’s not as comfortable, but life is full of little tradeoffs. You’re on a portable computer, dude. Deal with it. (And has Gates not heard of voice-to-text?)

No Office? Well, sort of

The lack of Office is a more serious charge. Like it or not (and regardless of the free and/or cheap alternatives out there), Microsoft Office is the most widely-used office productivity suite out there. If you’re in the fortunate position of never having to exchange Word files with anyone, then you can use whatever software you like. But clients and co-counsel are increasingly insisting on getting work product in editable form, so the likelihood you’ll encounter a Word file isn’t decreasing anytime soon.

The decision to offer Office on a non-Microsoft tablet isn’t necessarily a no-brainer. As Google’s Director of Chrome and Apps Alan Masarek pointed out in last week’s Tablet Strategy conference, Microsoft needs to figure out whether it’s a software company or a platform provider. If the latter, the company needs to re-think its stance on Office on non-Windows devices. (Rumor is it already has.) But the price-to-feature ratio may still be unacceptably high.

So the relatively few souls who’ve joined the clicking dancers in Microsoft’s Surface commercials may have an advantage over the rest of us. But how much of an advantage, and for how long?

(Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/8362040192/)

Bill Gates Says iPad Suffers From Lack of Keyboard, Office is a post from Lawyerist.com

MobiLit is the newest entry into a crowded trial presentation field that is dominated by TrialPad and Exhibit A. What makes it different? It is designed to wirelessly project its presentation to other iPads. Additionally, it can send images to a projector or even a TV with an Apple TV or direct wired connection. While this may be convenient, it is unclear why it is necessary. Other than possible use in mediation, I haven’t come across a situation where this is going to be useful. And as a trial presentation app, it falls flat. The bottom line is, it doesn’t seem to bring anything significant to the game and doesn’t appear to match up to the standards set by TrialPad for trial presentation.

MobiLit ($9.99) is, at its most basic, simply a .pdf presentation app. That’s it. It doesn’t do video, it doesn’t do depositions in other formats, it doesn’t do other document formats such as .jpg or .tif. It is, to put it simply, a one trick pony. And, according to the limited documentation (provided only under the “Help” tab under “Settings”) it doesn’t do higher definition .pdfs well. MobiLit indicates that it may bog down on 600×600 dpi .pdfs–which is unfortunate since many attorneys will obtain trial graphics in this higher definition setting, which is preferable for projecting large images in trial.

MobiLit includes basic markup tools (line, highlight, pen, erase) but no  advanced presentation functions. It claims to do call outs, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to access this feature. Even the video tutorials on the MobiLit website didn’t address any of the markup functions, so how (or whether) it works is a mystery to me. That’s it–no arrows, no circles, no boxes, nothing else–just highlighter, line, pen and erase. In today’s trial presentation app market that is simply nothing to get excited about.

There are other quirks. The interface isn’t particularly intuitive as to how to get documents into what MobiLit calls “projects.” At this point in app development this basic function should be obvious and intuitive. Its not in MobiLit. I actually had to find seek out the “help” section in order to figure it out. Here is a tip for MobiLit: “import” is much more accurate and intuitive than “edit” when you are importing documents or folders.

On the plus side, MobiLit does have Drobbox integration.  It can also import files from email and iTunes. And the price is a plus. As opposed to other, more expensive options, MobiLit is only $9.99.   But this doesn’t make up for its lack of features. To me it simply is a bare bones app. I don’t want bare bones when it comes to my trial presentations–I want the bells and whistles.

The bottom line is I simply don’t very many situations where I would be able to control having everyone involved in a case with an iPad. Even if they did, I would have to ask them to install the free MobiLit Viewer. Add the need to have everyone on the same WiFi network and it really creates logistical problems.  Its a neat idea, but I simply don’t see a practical application for it. If I had an unlimited budget, I guess I could have 5 or 6 iPads available to hand out to the judge, witnesses and opposing counsel and have the a projector involved, but that simply doesn’t seem realistic.

Score

MobiLit iPad Trial Presentation App, Review is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

You’ve made the decision to incorporate a tablet into your practice. The question is, which one? As a big fan of Apple products, that question is an easy one for me: and iPad of course. I began incorporating my first iPad into my practice shortly after they were introduced. About 6 months ago I upgraded to the newest iPad and I couldn’t be happier with the decision. At the time, I never considered an iPad mini. Recently I received an iPad Mini as a gift, and I can report on how an iPad mini compares.

iPad

I use my iPad in numerous ways through out my practice. I review transcripts and pleadings, conduct research and use it extensively for note taking. I’ve incorporated a number of trial related applications into my practice as well, such as TrialPad. One of my favorite uses is as a teaching and demonstrative evidence device. I primarily handle medical malpractice cases, so anatomy exhibits are a staple of my practice. There are number of applications I use to replace the once expensive custom exhibits. In short, the iPad has become an indispensable part of my practice.

iPad Mini

My initial thought was to use the iPad mini merely as a glorified e-reader. In my quest to eliminate more and more paper from not just my practice, but my life, I made a conscious decision to move to E-books as much as possible. I am a voracious reader, and before the move my nightstand and the table next to my favorite chair were piled high with books and magazines. No longer. I purchase almost everything I read as an E-book and have transferred most of my magazine subscriptions to digital. So my initial plan was to use my iPad Mini simply as a device for consuming content. And it excels at this.

Then I found myself using it more and more for quick checks of email and light web browsing and it does a fine job at this function as well. However, I do find that the small size of the links and web buttons presented as a result of the reduced screen size can be irksome. Quite frequently I find myself clicking on the wrong link, or simply unable to select a link at all without zooming out.

It is this fact that leads me to conclude that, for most people, the iPad Mini isn’t going to replace an iPad for most law practice and trial practice related functions. In trial I think the reduced screen size and difficulty navigating are simply unacceptable. It is possible that I could see using one during trial as a dedicated remote for Keynote presentations, but I wouldn’t purchase an iPad Mini simply for that purpose.

The Verdict

If you have the funds, or receive one as a gift, by all means the iPad Mini is a fine addition to your technology stable. I just wouldn’t rely on it to be your main workhorse alternative to your lap top, the way you can with an iPad.

iPad v. iPad Mini is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

Anatomy exhibits are frequently used in medical malpractice and other personal injury litigation to instruct a jury and illustrate injuries. Stock anatomy exhibits from providers such as Doe Report start at $119 for a single small jpeg. Larger .pdfs are even more expensive. Printed exhibits can run much higher. In a typical case, where 5-10 such exhibits may be necessary, and the cost quickly mounts. Is there an alternative? Absolutely. Simply turn to your iPad or Mac.

3D4Medical offers an extensive catalog of apps for the iPad, iPhone and Mac. Titles include Essential Anatomy, Muscle Pro, Skeletal Pro, and other titles that focus on the heart, brain, knee, elbow, shoulder and others. I have used a number of these apps for an extended period of time and have been astonished by how well they work and the level of detail. All allow you to take away layers, in effect peeling away layers of muscles, ligaments and nerves, to show underlying detail. All the apps show the anatomy in 3D and allow you to rotate and tilt the display so that you can focus in in minute details.

As an exhibit substitute, one option is simply to use the projection capability to display it “live” and utilize the ability to rotate and tilt. Jurors certainly like the high tech 3D effect as opposed to a static poster board exhibit. Another option is to export your view by email or local save as a jpeg. You can then easily print them out. This same option can be used to, in effect, take a snapshot of the view you are showing to a jury in order to mark it as an official exhibit.

In addition to the ability to create exhibits, these applications are excellent tools to educate yourself and witnesses.

And the best part? The iPad apps start at $12.99. Mac apps start at $9.99.  A full set of applications can easily run less than just two stock illustrations. You can then use the apps over and over again.  A great product and a great price.

iPad Apps Can Replace Custom Anatomy Exhibits is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

One of the very first apps I bought for my long-gone iPad 1 was the outstanding GoodReader. I paid $4.99 for it when I thought it was nothing but a semi-decent PDF reader because the iPad was woefully lacking in that regard. As time has gone on, what was once a one-trick-pony has turned into a complete toolkit of things I didn’t know I needed.

What can it do? What can’t it do? I use it to pull files down from Dropbox. You can use it to pull down files from the cloud storage service of your choice. It plays well with Google Drive, SkyDrive, your own FTP server, your network-attached storage, you name it. Any regular IOS user knows how finicky Apple is about letting you download things directly to an iDevice. GoodReader helps get around that by opening almost anything you throw at it via GoodReader itself. When it does that, it then doesn’t matter where the iPad decided to actually stash the thing – it’s just right there to read. GoodReader also gives you the option to sync your documents with your cloud storage, ensuring that if you make changes on the iPad, they’ll show up back at your computer.

Over time, GoodReader has expanded to support opening video within the program and to behave as Instapaper (or Pocket, or Read it Later, or the offline reading app of your choice) does and save your material offline for later reading. If you’re not already using an offline reader app, you really should be. If nothing else, stacking up articles to read comes in unbelievably handy when enduring long CLE presentations.

All of the above features have simply been value-added bonuses in terms of my own use. What I originally got it for, and what it continues to be great at, is (1) being able to process huge – as in 20MB+ – PDFs and (2) being able to annotate PDFs huge and small. I had roughly 900 pages from an administrative record grouped into 6 large (and extremely unorganized) PDF files. GoodReader allowed me to navigate through those documents with ease and mark up everything as I went.

The good folks over at iPhonejd.com recently reviewed another PDF program, iAnnotate, that seems to have a much richer feature set in terms of how it can annotate. If all you’re looking to do on the go is mark up documents, that might be a better choice. However, iAnnotate doesn’t take the Swiss Army knife approach that GoodReader does. For me, GoodReader performs the functions of a number of apps (downloading from/uploading to the cloud, syncing document versions, offline reading, annotation) and does it seamlessly so that I need never leave the app. Probably the best $5 I have ever spent at the app store.

How GoodReader Changed My iPad Life is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

Technology and lawyers: sometimes, this particular combination mixes no better than oil and water, which isn’t necessarily surprising. After all, the legal profession is grounded in tradition and for years, lawyers practiced law quite well without the benefits of technology, thank you very much.

Even so, the legal profession is a business  and its clients live in a world enmeshed with technology, so practicing law in a vacuum simply isn’t an option. In fact, the American Bar Association recently amended Model Rule 1.1 to require that lawyers stay abreast of technological changes. For that reason, lawyers have slowly, but surely, adapted to emerging technologies like social media, cloud computing and mobile computing. You need look no further than the results from this year’s ABA Legal Technology Survey for proof of that.

But do lawyers necessarily need to use the latest and greatest technology toys in their law practices and will doing so necessarily make them better lawyers? Of course not. As Leo Mulvihill, Jr. pointed out in a recent Lawyerist post, sometimes, compared to the iPad, good ol’ pen and paper oftentimes performs just as well, if not better, than the latest tech gadgets.

But for those lawyers who have an interest in emerging technology tools, there’s certainly no harm in experimenting with the latest releases and envisioning their potential use in the practice of law. For example, Google Glass and Leap Motion are two really interesting new technology releases that, at first glance, have little bearing on the practice of law. But that’s not to say that curiosity combined with a touch of imagination won’t uncover potential ways that lawyers can use these devices in their practices.

And guess what? Two enterprising lawyers have already done just that: tested out these new technologies and/or envisioned how they could–or could not–improve their ability to represent their clients effectively.

In this post, California trial attorney Mitch Jackson envisions how Google Glass–Google’s wearable, interactive technology–could be used to facilitate a smoother, more streamlined and less intrusive jury selection process than traditional methods, including pen and paper. According to Mitch, the potential of Google Glass is that “the entire jury selection process (will take) less time while providing a more meaningful dialog.”

In comparison, South Carolina attorney Bill Latham reviewed the Leap Motion device (which allows you to interact with your computer without a mouse or keyboard by moving your hands through the air)  and concluded that currently, it’s not a very practical tool for lawyers, but has the potential to be useful down the road: “For now, it is simply much more efficient to control your computer using a mouse or touch screen than using the Leap and currently available software. No doubt that will change as clever developers and the Leap Team continue to refine what is now still a beta quality device.”

I also tested out the Leap Motion device and agree with  his assessment. While interesting, I don’t think if offers much to lawyers in its current form, but who knows what the future will bring?

The bottom line: exploring the possibilities offered by new technologies isn’t a bad thing–it’s a positive step that can help lawyers improve their day-to-day lives. These new devices don’t have to replace traditional tools like pen and paper. Instead they simply supplement them and help to streamline the practice of law.

So while the iPad didn’t replace pen and paper for Leo, he explained that he continues to use it in his practice, but only for certain functions. Because, like everything, technology has a time and a place. Some lawyers will use it more than others, but all lawyers  need to use it in order to provide the best service to their clients. Because, after all, that’s our goal at the end of the day, isn’t it?

(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/93393982@N00/8399337241/)

The Jury’s Still Out on the Utility of Emerging Technology for Lawyers is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

If you’ve got a new tablet (or if there is one waiting under your tree), you will probably trying every app in the store. Keep at it, by all means, but to focus your app addiction, I reached out to two specialists: Jeff Taylor of The Droid Lawyer, and Jeff Richardson of iPhoneJD.

Here are the apps they recommend you start with:

Top Apps for Android

Almost all of the apps Jeff Taylor recommends for your new Android tablet are free. ezPDF Reader has a few purchasing options if the free trial doesn’t do it for you, and Depose, which is built to help you organize your deposition questions and notes, is just $7.99.

• Google Drive
• Gmail
• Snapseed
• Quickoffice
• Evernote
• Kindle
• ASTRO File Manager
• Chrome
• Google Keyboard
• ezPDF Reader (free trial)
• Depose ($7.99)
• Fastcase

Taylor also recommends picking up a Chromecast for $35 (or just $29.99 on Amazon, at the moment), which makes it easy to control a television from your tablet. And, unless your tablet is for work only, he also recommends Pandora, Netflix, and Hulu+ for entertainment.

Here are Taylor’s 2013 pick for the best Android apps for lawyers.

Next page: Top Apps for iPad …

Get These Apps for Your New Tablet is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

One of the most-useful things you can do with an iPad is view and annotate PDF documents. There are many apps for this (some of which Nicole Black reviewed on Lawyerist last year), but Easy Annotate recently asked me to try its app. So I did, and I compared it to two other apps I already use: GoodReader and Skitch.

iOS now makes it easier to open things in other apps. All three of these, for example, reside in the sharing options. When you are viewing a PDF in any other app (Dropbox, Mail, Gmail, etc.), tap the sharing icon, select “Open In … ,” and then the app you want. You can send annotated PDFs back to the app it came from using the same dialog. That makes iOS work pretty similar to your computer when it comes to opening and saving documents.

Easy Annotate and GoodReader, though, give you additional options; they can pull in documents directly from other sources. Tons of other sources, in the case of GoodReader.

Once you get those PDFs into your app of choice, you have, basically, five ways to annotate them:

1. Highlight
2. Underline
3. Add comment
4. Draw
5. Add text

Some apps add things like stamps, arrows, and other shapes that are basically pre-formatted drawings. Or different styles of underlining (including strikethrough).

PDFs come in two flavors: those with text and those that are only images. Many of the annotation features only work when the PDF contains text, whether because it was converted from a Word document or because the text in an image has been recognized by OCR. Namely, highlighting and underlining text only works on documents that actually have text.

Otherwise, you are limited to the drawing tools for typical markup, though you can use thick lines and adjust the opacity to make highlights. And you can still add notes and text. But still, your options are more limited with image-only PDFs. All the annotation apps have the same limitations.

Anyway, on to the apps.

First up, Easy Annotate.

Annotate PDF Documents on Your iPad is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

I really like writing in plaintext. Whenever I write in Word, I am always stopping to fix formatting problems or tweak the styles. With plaintext, there are no styles or formatting. It helps me to stay focused.

All I need is a little Markdown (or HTML) to designate emphasis, headings, lists, and blockquotes, and I can plow through blog posts and memorandum drafts.

Text files are also my favorite answer to the problem of compatibility. If you have ever tried to create or edit a Word document on an iPad, you have probably experienced small formatting problems. Since plaintext files don’t have formatting, this is not a problem.

For these and other reasons, plaintext has been growing in popularity with non-programmers in recent years. This seems to be especially true among Apple users, for some reason. The App Store is overflowing with text editors, while last time I checked, there were virtually none in the Google Play Store, and only a few options for Windows users.

I have tried a lot of text editors, and I like a lot of them, but Byword, Nebulous Notes, and Drafts have consistently been my favorites. Here is why.

My Three Favorite iOS Text Editors is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

I basically gushed about Pad & Quill’s iPad 2 cases when I reviewed them in two years ago, so I was excited to get a pair of cases to review with my iPad Mini.

The Pad & Quill Graduate Collection

Pad & Quill’s Graduate Collection cases are bound like library editions of classic literature. When closed, that’s pretty much what it looks like — although if you look closely, you’ll see wood grain instead of trimmed pages. And not many library books have an elastic band holding them shut.

The bindery cloth is touch, and Pad & Quill claims it is much more durable than previous materials. It feels great in the hand, too — I just love to hold it.

The wood frame is a bit lower profile than the iPad 2 cases I tested. The rubber “bumpers” that hold the iPad Mini in place are slimmer, so the whole thing fits nice and tight, with the wood flush with the surface of the display. The “bookmark” makes it easy to get your iPad out, if you ever want to remove it.

The cover has an embedded magnet so that when you open the cover, your iPad switches on. There are spaces cut out of the wood for the iPad Mini’s speakers, volume buttons and mute switch (this is hard to access, though), headphone jack, rear microphone, and rear camera (which is covered by the elastic band when the case is closed).

The only part about the case that I really don’t like is the plastic “button” that passes through the wood to press the power switch. It sticks out too far — beyond the edge of the cover, in fact — which means it is easy to accidentally press. Even the elastic band can activate the switch.

On further testing, it’s not the button that is the problem. The wooden frame on my Graduate Collection case is just slightly misaligned with the cover, which means the magnet that triggers the wake/sleep function is just slightly misaligned. That means even light bumps will move the magnet and wake the iPad, so that I get the “click” sound of it going back to sleep. This does not happen with the Contega case I reviewed below. So it is a quality-control issue, which seems natural with any handmade product, and I’m confident Pad & Quill will stand behind their products in a case like this.

The other negative to the Graduate Collection cover is that it does not really offer a reliable way to incline the iPad Mini, either for more-comfortable typing or for video watching. Depending on the surface, you may be able to prop it up for video watching, but you might want the Contega for that, instead.

Pad & Quill’s Handmade iPad Mini Cases is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

Most posts about iOS apps are about helping you lifehack your way to work success: to-do lists, cloud storage, timekeeping, etc. But all work and no play makes lawyers dull, and your family and friends have likely tired of you explaining how Remember the Milk changed your life. Your iPhone and/or iPad has plenty of storage, relatively speaking, and you have plenty of time to be a world-beater during the work day with your sleek ScannerPro-to-Evernote integration, so why not add a few apps that are just there for some me time?

8 Great iOS Apps That Have Nothing To Do With Practicing Law is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

iOS apps for lawyers abound, whether for case management, billing, or trial preparation. This page has every legal app for iOS that we could find in the App Store.

There are just a few exceptions. This does not include apps that have not been updated since 2011 and have few or no reviews in the App Store. Apps that are simply mobile versions of a legal publication aren’t here, either, since the app doesn’t do anything over and above the website. Finally, the App Store is full of applications that simply repackage freely available content, such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Unless an app added some significant extras (such as the ability to annotate or cross reference) to that type of content, it’s not here.

The table below is searchable, and you can sort by each column. Use the comments to let us know if we missed an app.

Looking for legal Android apps?

Every Legal App for iPhone and iPad is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.

New research confirms what many of us have believed all along: taking notes by hand — with a pen and paper — is better than typing. Setting aside the potential for distraction (games), the act of taking notes on a computer actually interferes with your memory.

Taking Notes by Hand Improves Retention

RelatedCornell Notes PDF Generator

According to Vox, psychologists Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer investigated the effectiveness of different styles of notetaking by having students watch a 15-minute TED talk while they took notes. A half hour later, they had to take a test on the material that included both factual and conceptual questions. Students who took notes by hand performed better than students who took notes on a laptop, no matter what Mueller and Oppenheimer tried.

It turns out that typing speed is a big part of the problem. When you have a keyboard, you have a very strong tendency to transcribe what you hear, even if you try not to. But when taking notes by hand, you have to (a) pay attention and (b) decide what is important.

Based on this study, at least, there is no question how lawyers should be taking notes: by hand.

Of course, one of the reasons for typing is so that you can take down more information that you can digest later. To control for that strategy, the researchers let some students review their notes before taking the test a week later. That did make a difference — for the students who took notes by hand. Laptop-notetakers actually performed worse when they had a chance to look at their notes.

They also tried instructing the laptop-notetakers to slow down and take notes in their own words. Even with those instructions, the students wrote down a lot more than the students who took notes by hand, and underperformed on the test as a result.

To sum up, the act of taking notes — by hand — matters.

Lawyers Should Not Take Notes on Laptops

Here is the actual breakdown of the students’ performance on factual and conceptual questions:

As you can see, laptop users did pretty well on factual questions, relatively speaking, but they fell far short on conceptual questions, which involved comparing and analyzing ideas from the TED talk they watched.

Lawyers certainly need to be able to retain facts, but the application of those facts to the law is conceptual, using the researchers’ terminology. Based on this study, at least, there is no question how lawyers should be taking notes: by hand.

Lawyers Should Take Notes by Hand

Lawyers take notes all the time, obviously, and it is probably a good thing that many still rely on the humble legal pad.

Related“Why My iPad Will Never Replace my yPads”

If you are paperless, it’s still a good idea to take notes by hand. Just toss them in your inbox and scan them when you get a chance. Or, if you want to get fancy, there are plenty of note-taking apps that let you use a stylus and your tablet instead of a pen and paper.

Now, Mueller and Oppenheimer did not test note taking on tablets. It is possible that the benefits of taking notes do not carry over from paper to tablets. But if you are taking notes by hand, it probably does not matter whether you are using a pen and legal pad or a stylus and iPad. If there is a problem, it would just be that taking notes on a tablet is actually a little slower than pen and paper.

Besides, typing is probably the least-effective way to get a transcript of a deposition or hearing. Use a voice recorder (or voice recording app), instead, or just get the transcript of the hearing. Then you will have the best of both worlds.¹

Laptops Are Bad for Client Relations

There is another reason — not in the study — why a pen and paper or stylus and iPad might be a better choice for client meetings, at least. Your laptop screen is a physical barrier between you and your client. And if you are looking at your laptop instead of at your client, it sends the message that you are not listening.

[W]hether or not you have a laptop in front of you, use a pen and paper or stylus and tablet for your note taking.

Instead, sit and listen actively to your client during meetings. Your relationships with your clients will be better for it, and you will probably ask better questions and do a better job remembering what they have told you. If you really need a verbatim transcript of client meetings, consider recording it, or have an associate play the role of court reporter.

If you regularly need to access court records, client files, or forms during client meetings, use an iPad or Android tablet instead of a laptop. A tablet is less intrusive and easier to share with your client. If you absolutely must use a laptop, keep your fingers off the keyboard unless you need to look something up, and talk to your client about what they are doing as you do it.

And whether or not you have a laptop in front of you, use a pen and paper or stylus and tablet for your note taking.

Featured image: “Hand of Japanese businessman taking notes” from Shutterstock.

1. Don’t try to record in court without asking permission, obviously. ↩

Lawyers Should Take Notes by Hand is a post from Lawyerist.com. The original content in this feed is © 2013 Lawyerist Media, LLC. This feed is provided for private use only and may not be re-published.