Our Director of Library Services here at Bose McKinney & Evans, Cheryl Niemeier, has published a good, comprehensive review of free and low-cost apps available to help lawyers and paralegals. Click here to read the article. Most of the apps have direct uses by litigators and allow them to increase their productivity and efficiency — attributes for which we all strive in our busy practices.
In my own business litigation practice, I find it far more convenient to carry my iPad with me when I am traveling rather than a bulkier laptop. The iPad is much easier to use in the cramped confines of an airplane and operates many hours longer than a laptop when an electric outlet is not handy.
The research tools now available for tablets are outstanding. I also recommend the Note Taker HD app, available for $4.99 at the App Store. Note Taker HD is one of a number of low or no-cost note-taking apps. What I like about Note Taker HD is that it allows the user to open a PDF in Note Taker and to write and make notes on the PDF document. One of my main reservations to going paperless is that I can’t highlight, scribble and make notes on my documents. Note Taker solves that problem.
Please let us know your favorite apps!
Thanks for including our iJuror app on your list.
Good post, Steve, and a good list by Cheryl. Based on experience, I can highly recommend these apps as well:
Pages and Keynote ($): Apple’s fantastic word processing and presentation apps; by far, the industry leaders on iPad productivity apps (go figure)
Dropbox: absolutely essential to my practice
iaWriter ($) : a distraction free text- writing app
Readdle Docs: a great document management app that syncs with a number of services, including Dropbox
Evernote: a wonderful note-taking and categorizing tool
Noteshelf ($): for those that want to write on their iPad using a stylus, this is a must-have
iAnnotate PDF ($): a fantastic PDF annotation app; also allows you to convert any Office document you receive or any web page to PDF for annotation
Wunderlist: a great to-do list app
OnLive Desktop: allows you to run a virtual Windows 7 PC on your iPad, and syncs with Dropbox and other services (does need a fairly reliable internet connection, though), for those times when you have to work in Word or Excel
None of these apps costs over $10, and most are free. We’re still not ready to put our desktops and laptops aside, but we’re getting very, very close.
Brian,
Thanks for supplementing the list. One thing I’d like to see is a good app for taking real time depositions. Any suggestions along those lines?
I’ve not heard of one being available yet, but given Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology, this couldn’t be that hard to invent. Man, if only I’d learned how to code!