The Basics of the Lawyer’s iPad

I was asked to write a beginner's level feature for lawyers using the iPad. The result is The Basics of the Lawyer’s iPad. Due to website migration activity here at the Oklahoma Bar, I am providing you a PDF of the article for your download and reading. Download Calloway iPad Basics March16 2013 OklBarJ I hope beginners will find this useful and believe even those with more iPad experience can learn a thing or two.

Coincidentally, the same week, Jeff Richardson of iPhoneJD.com fame posted an updated feature on his blog Advice for lawyers new to the iPad.You will not want to miss that post.

I should also note the video on our YouTube channel -- Getting started with iPad2. With all three of these resources, a late-arriver to using iPads should catch up quite quickly.

 

Unexpected Uses of Tech Tools and Unintended Consequences

Your smart phone will do many things that are far beyond what most people would have associated with a telephone not that long ago. We have so many tech tools and gadgets now that that unintended uses are sometimes more interesting and innovative than the intended uses. Why should everyone have cloud storage now? Why would a cloud-based company like Evernote endorse a brand of paper notebook? Why would a lawyer use an iPad to take movies for work? (I got to travel to South Carolina to learn about that last one.) The answers to these questions and more can be found in the attached Oklahoma Bar Journal article Unexpected Uses of Tools and Unintended Consequences. Download UnintendedTools.Calloway.OklaBarJ

OBA MAP Video Practice Tips: Getting Started with Your ipad

We have now set up a YouTube Channel for the Oklahoma Bar Association Management Assistance Program and will be doing some regular Law Practice Tips in video format. One of our early offerings is Getting Started with the iPad2, featuring Dave Owen of ImageServe.com. If you just picked up an iPad and started using it without much training, you may not be aware of different techniques and shortcuts, like the "four finger swipe." The video is not short at over 14 minutes in length, but most every lawyer iPad user who has watched it has said that they picked up something useful.  

Managing Tasks and More Tasks with TaskTask

I've heard several office workers say they they seem to "live" in Microsoft Outlook. While I encourage lawyers to use practice management software to organize their practices, I know many of them rely on Microsoft Outlook for day-to-day calendar management, as well as e-mail. It is installed on their computers already, so it seems free. Today's lawyer needs to have access to e-mail and calendar from their mobile phones. Because we have Exchange Server at my employment, that is pretty easy to set up. When I got my first iPhone, it only took a few minutes to sync my e-mail and calendar to it. Synchronizing a to-do or task list with MS Outlook was an entirely different matter. I tried several methods. But Paul Unger gave me the tip on the tool that works. it is the TaskTask app for the iPhone. (It costs $4.99 and there is a Windows phone version that costs less, too.) It does require Exchange Server and there are some technical specs to review on the site. It is not as fully functional as it could be. But when I rememebr something I need or want to do, I really like entering it in the TaskTask app on my phone so it will be in my Outlook tasks at work. And, of course, I can always check the "to do" list from my phone.

The iPad for Litigators

The new iPad is out today! The new iPad is out today! The new iPad is out today! OK, that may not be as funny as Steve Martin's screams about being in the new phone book in The Jerk, but a lot of people are really excited about the new and improved iPad released today.

Trial lawyers are also pretty excited about the iPad. With great apps for trial presentation and preparation and a very simple interface, lots of lawyers are successfully using iPads in the courtroom for jury trials and other types of hearings. iPad for Litigators is the topic of the 53rd Edition of the Digital Edge podcast. Our guest is Tom Mighell. Tom blogs about the iPad in the legal community at iPad 4 Lawyers.  Tom is the author of the book iPad in One Hour for Lawyers and the author of the newly announced book iPad Apps in One Hour for Lawyers. Tom and I have done several programs about lawyers using iPads in and out of the courtroom. So my co-host, Sharon Nelson and I chat with Tom about how trial lawyers use iPads. It turned out to be a pretty good podcast if I do say so myself and the show notes have links to the apps we discussed as well as a link to purchase the archive of a CLE presentation Tom and I did through ALI-ABA with trial lawyer Jamie Moncus.

I hope you can listen to our podcast on The iPad for Litigators.

The iPad for Litigators is a hot topic

Later today I will be presenting for an online CLE titled The iPad for Litigators. Don't bother rushing to enroll as the program is now sold out. The last I heard they were closing in on 600 registered to take the class. (It will be repeated on February 3, 2012.)

My co-presenters are Tom Mighell, chair of the ABA Law Practice Management Section, blogger at iPad 4 Lawyers and author of iPad in One Hour for Lawyers and Jamie Moncus of the firm Hare Wynn, who recently obtained a $37.5 million verdict using iPad trial presentation technology. I hear more every week about how lawyers are using iPads in their practices. I am grateful for the opportunity to co-present on this topic. As is almost always the case, I have learned more preparing for this program and may learn even more during the program.

Your Future as a Lawyer

Thinking about your future can bring forth many emotions, especially if the future looks challenging and uncertain. That's why it may be easy for time-challenged lawyers to avoid the exercise. If you are going to retire in the next few years, skip this blog post. Otherwise, invest thirty minutes this week reading the articles I have linked here. If you need inspiration to think about this, just start with the following feature story from the July 2011 ABA Journal Law Job Stagnation May Have Started Before the Recession—And It May Be a Sign of Lasting Change. Quite a few observers of the legal industry have drawn some of the same conclusions. Just to make certain you click on the link to the story, here's the "money quote" from the article:

• "For most lawyers, survival will depend upon their ability to harness technology to deliver greater value to clients at a cost that declines—yes, declines—over time. The biggest challenge for law firms will be transitioning away from internal firm metrics that reward billable hours and discourage or prohibit the crucial trial-and-error experimentation needed to create, refine and market more innovative work processes that do more with less." Id.

So go read the article to see how the authors reached that conclusion.

But the future brings promise as well as challenges. Maybe none of us will see that future where one can make a living as a "Space Lawyer," but it is not hard to see new and emerging areas of law practice.

But a good opportunity to chart your future appears this month in another ABA publication, the "Careers" issue of Law Practice magazine (July/August 2011.) The Time to Take a Leap feature begins with an important story by a good friend of mine. Lawyers Join the Free Agent Nation by Stephen P. Gallagher charts how career paths have changed for lawyers just as the idea of life-long employment with a single company has changed for the majority of the American work force. The is followed by 10 Steps to Prepare Yourself for a Graceful Launch by John H. Snyder. Although this is written for a hypothetical associate about to leave the big firm, it is good reading for anyone taking stock of your career. The feature then focuses on several lawyers and their successful career changes.

But, wait, you might say, "I really am my law practice at  this point and there's really nowhere to leap." (Joke in poor taste omitted.)  It is certainly true that for many lawyers, from solo/small firm lawyers to partners in larger law frims that they could change their address or their partners, but the clients that they serve are their law practice. Absent taking a salaried job and shuttering a private practice, they may feel  certain that they are not looking at career change.

As suggested by the ABA Journal article on stagnation, you may have the choice of reinventing your practice or watching while others reinvent it for you. So continue your tour of the Careers edition of Law Practice magazine by reading Make the Right Move: Career Assessment Tools by Wendy L. Werner for some ideas on learning about yourself, Optimizing Your Online Shingle: On-Page and Off-Page Best Practices by Bob Ambrogi and Steve Matthews and enjoy the fun of Sharon Nelson and John Simek discussing using an iPad in your law practice. In the Ask Bill column, Bill Gibson talks with me and Tom Mighell about social media for lawyers.

Whether you are a new lawyer or law student entering the job market, who should read the entire Careers edition of Law Practice magazine or you want to pick and choose, there's a lot in Law Practice magazine, this month and every month and I'd say that even if I wasn't on the magazine's editorial board.

TrialPad 2.0 for the iPad is a Breakthrough

TrialPad 2.0 for the iPad is so good, this isn't even a review. It is an unabashed fan letter. Even non-litigators can benefit from this great app, especially if you have an iPad 1 that you won't be trading in for a while. First of all, I have been referred to as thrifty (well, OK, maybe even a tightwad.)  A few searches will find my byline attached to features like High-Tech Penny Pinching for the GPSolo magazine. So when I first blogged about TrialPad right after ABA TECHSHOW 2011, I noted that I was initially a bit put off by the $89.99 price tag. Apps are supposed to cost 99 cents, right? Or at the very most $4.99! After seeing TrialPad 1 demonstrated, however, I could see that it could be worth that price.

Recently released TrialPad 2.0 for the iPad, however, renders the value proposition a moot question. TrialPad 2.0 for the iPad is not competing with 99 cent apps. It is a legitimate competitor to trial presentation software costing tens of thousands of dollars in purchase and training costs. Best of all, you don't have to go through days of training. Anyone who managed to complete law school can figure out the basics of TrialPad in an hour or so. TrialPad.com has FAQ's and some short videos to help.

The more expensive trial presentation software packages certainly have more features, but they also have more complexity. TrialPad 2.0 can be used in ways you would never use the traditional presentation products. If you are going to a wired courtroom with a projector, it just takes a few minutes to load seven or eight documents into TrialPad, making it useful for a short evidentiary hearing or an argument on a motion.  Carrying your own projector and screen obviously takes a little more time for setup. For a jury trial, it probably makes sense for another lawyer or assistant to run TrialPad when lead counsel does the trial. But at least it is possible to do both with a single lawyer.

Any lawyer who might want to display images from an iPad on a screen and projector can benefit from this tool. I see this being used for mediations, settlement discussions, planning, training and most any time you want several people to see a display using a screen and projector.

What's new in TrialPad 2? You can see the new features here. The most-awaited was the ability to do call-outs so that a paragraph can expand out of a dcoument for easier viewing by a jury. There's a new white board feature that could be useful in all sorts of settings. Now it can import all sorts of file formats besides PDF, including JPG, PowerPoint, Word and multi-page TIF's. (I haven't tried this yet, but I note that Oklahoma State Courts Network site displays filed pleadings in multi-page TIF's.) It can play videos and create short clips from longer videos!

TrialPad 2.0 can even partially make up for the display limitations of your iPad 1. As manof you know, external display is greatly improved with the iPad 2, although depending on the app, it is far from perfect. But if you want to use TrialPad to display the image from your iPad 1 through a projector, it is now this easy: Click the Power button on the top right corner of your iPad, and while holding it down, click the iPad Button on the front of the iPad. You will see the screen flash white and hear the camera shutter sound. Now open the Photos app on your iPad. A JPG of that screen shot will be your most recent photo, click on it to open it and use the arrow key to send it to TrialPad. Then you can use TrialPad 2.0 to display that with the projector. After you have done this a few times, it takes far less time to do than reading these instructions. And it is easy because TrialPad 2.0 now accepts JPG images.

If you missed the earlier discussion about using an iPad and Google Maps during depositions, you can review that here.

For a detailed review of TrialPad 2.0, Finis Price has a nice one here at TechnoEsq. There are more reviews here at TrialPad's website. TrialPad has a blog and Twitter feed as well. I have done several presentations on using iPads in the Courtroom in the last few months, two with my friend Tom Mighell (http://ipad4lawyers.squarespace.com/), and most recently to the Oklahoma Association of Defense Counsel. I always save TrialPad until near the end so I can end with a big finish. The trial lawyers have always been very impressed -- and that was just TrialPad 1.5 ! For many lawyers, this will be $89.99 very well spent and it will make you love your iPad even more.



 

New Ideas for Lawyers and Google Maps

There are so many technology tools that it is sometimes a challenge to recognize all the ways that they can be used. Well, one of the neat features of the iPhone and iPad is that you can save a screen shot of whatever is displayed on the phone by holding down the power button and the Apple home button at the same time. The screen shot will be saved with your other photos. The other tool is Google Maps.

So look at how a couple of smart iPad-using lawyers have married those concepts together.

First Rob Dean at his WALKINGOFFICE blog notes how you can load the Google Map and then the Google Street View of a location and save the picture using this technique with his post Need Photos for Court? Take Screenshots with Google Maps.

Jeff Richardson at iPhone J.D. takes that idea and expands it by using a $5.99 iPad app called Adobe Ideas to have the witness at a depostion mark exactly where he and other parties were located on the Street View of a particular address. His post is titled Using an iPad to recreate a scene in a deposition. After the witness has marked up the photograph, you save it and e-mail it right then to all counsel and the court reporter. It is sort of amazing when you put this all together. You leave the deposition with a photograph of the scene, with the witness having marked with his or her own hand the location of parties, other witnesses, vehicles and other items of note. This would be extremely useful if a wtiness changed his or her story about the locations.

(NOTE: Lawyers without iPads can grab screen shots into their clipboard from their PC's using Alt + PrintScreen and paste the photo into a document or e-mail or other file.)