Monthly Archives: April 2010

iPad at Trial

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Maclitigator just completed a four day jury trial (a.k.a. “in the Soup” as my friend Chuck might say) using the iPad as the primary means of getting information in front of the jury.  Here’s the low down on how it went.

iPad for Trial Presentation

The last post on the iPad indicated that it isn’t (yet) of too much use in the day to day affairs of a trial attorney.  However, at trial, the iPad really shines. Trial technology should be transparent. This means that it should not appear to the jury as (1) overly flashy; or, (2) a complete headache and a distraction to the attorney. Apple has created a product which facilitates presentation of evidence without getting in the way and does so in a completely unassuming fashion.

The iPad sits low and is the perfect size to place next to a legal pad or other notes while at the podium. Using Keynote, all documents to be admitted at trial were loaded in. BlankiPad_Trialslides provided a ‘tabbed’ divider set up, separating photos of the scene, x-rays, medical records, tables & summaries into their respective categories. Once the “Trial Slides” were completed, examination outlines cross referenced the appropriate slide. The slides were not ‘motion slides’ or slide incorporating transitions or other fancy Keynote stuff. Just a single page per picture/document. Photos were grouped as a single exhibit (e.g. Exhibit 5 was a series of 5 photos, or 5 slides in Keynote).  The slides were then printed out and placed in an indexed binder which referenced the Exhibit number, the slide number, and the tab within the three ring binder. In this fashion, slides could be pulled up quickly and all evidence to be admitted was contained in a single Keynote presentation.

All deposition transcripts were transferred to Keynote as separate presentations, using PDFtoKeynote, a great little application that will take a multi-page PDF and turn it into a Keynote presentation, one page per slide.  Because the iPad can switch so quickly between presentations, flipping from the Trial Slides to the deposition transcript slides during a cross examination is an effortless process. Jumping back and forth between evidentiary exhibits and impeachment transcript evidence works like a charm and is much more smooth than wandering around the courtroom looking for the paper documents. PDFtoKeynote also works great for moving over multipage medical records too.

One caveat about using Keynote. If you develop your slides on a iMac or MacBook, be aware that (1) presenter notes do not transfer; (2) some fonts/transitions/image groups do not make the cut and will be replaced or removed. There is an Apple support article detailing these issues, but realistically your slides should be single page evidentiary focused, not slick “hey look at me stuff.”

Hardware Setup

Hardware setup could not be simpler.

(1) a good high lumen projector (>2500 lumens);

(2) a high quality and long VGA cable. Don’t try your local Shack or Bust Buy, they’ll either sell you an overpriced “Monster” cable or tell you that you can’t run long VGA cables because the signal fails. We ran a 25′ thin VGA cable from the projector to the podium with no loss of signal and at a cost of about $25. Our cable came from VPI and was good quality.

(3) an iPad, of course;

(4) a VGA video adapter cable for the iPad;

(5) the silicon inCase for iPad (get the black one, obviously). The iPad itself is a bit slippery. Sweaty palms and all during trial, the inCase silicon provided a great grippy feel and prevented the hard ‘bang’ sound of aluminum on wood at the podium. One downside of the case is that the iPad VGA video adapter would not fit through the opening. This required pulling the case slightly down to plug in the video.

Only twice did a technology hiccup occur during use at trial. On opening a presentation for the first time, Keynote abruptly quit, resulting and returned to the iPad home screen. Tapping Keynote and reopening the presentation quickly cured the problem. It’s a weird little bug that will probably be remedied and can be avoided by opening the presentation in advance. But, even with the ‘crash’ of Keynote, two taps and the thing was back up and FAST. The first time it happened there’s that momentary panic, but it opened up so quickly that the second time it happened I didn’t even notice it.

The MacBook came along at trial, but sat somewhat despondent at counsel’s table. Never once was it taken to the podium. It did come in handy for a quick search, during opposing counsel’s direct exam, for cross exam references in the witness’s deposition. But, iPad then took over by pulling up the transcript for the jury to see. More about the trial itself can be read here.

iPaid for iPad

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Putting the iPad through its paces, this post was drafted using Dragon Dictation on the iPad.  What follows, within quotes, was completely drafted and edited on the iPad.

“We keep hearing about the iPad’s “magical” experience. However, the only magical thing about the new iPad is the ability to make people pull money out of their pocket and simultaneously make them blind to the shortcomings of the device which they receive in exchange for that cold hard cash. Getting any real work done on the iPad is next to impossible. The keyboard itself makes typing documents more than difficult. But, add to that fact a complete inability to move documents easily back and forth between the desktop and the iPad a practice in frustration.

So, here is a complete review of the iPad as relevant to attorneys.

What it’s good for right now.

Right now. There are some amazing things that the iPad can do. Following is a list of applications which are necessary for attorneys.

Dragon dictate. This little application is quite amazing on the iPad. It enables you to dictate at an accuracy and ease much much greater then Macspeech/Dictate.

Nuance’s Dragon Dictate represents everything that should happen with a dictation program. I don’t need to train it, I don’t need to alter words in its dictionary, I don’t need to pay outrageous sums for special legal dictionaries. Granted using Nuance to dictate something like 790 3P third 1004 (Utah 2007) can be a bit frustrating.

GoodReader: this application allows you to “mount” an server for remote file storage such as Dropbox or local network hard drive.  Only by doing this can you readily and easily access files which are not available on the iPad. Good reader also allows youIMG_0005 to read Adobe PDFs in an easy way which restructures the text flow so that you are not scrolling all over the screen and also incorporates the ability to cut and paste text, albeit an entire page at a time.

iWork/Keynote: Keynote is going to be an application which gets used at trial very easily. Loading slides in and then scrolling to them during trial will be very easy. You can transfer keynote slideshows from your Mac to iTunes which are then transferred over to the iPad. Or, you can create slideshows directly on the iPad itself. Assuming that you have loaded all necessary images into the photo browser.

What it’s not so good for:

Right now the iWork applications simply have no usable means of transferring documents back and forth between an iPad and a desktop machine. There is no built-in file management system for the iPad. Additionally, many of the advanced features in keynote and numbers will be lost on transferring over to the iPad.

Bottom line: wait to buy the iPad. There is no specific “need” for attorneys to have this device at this time. While the future of the iPad may hold magical and amazing things in store for attorneys, the inability to do any significant work and the complete lack of applications which support the workflow of an attorney

What to look for down the line: There needs to be a more robust and easy-to-use method of transferring files back and forth between a full desktop computer and the iPad itself. Additionally, there needs to be a more legal specific applications. OmniGroup is going to crank out OmniOutliner for the iPad as well as OmniFocus.  Both of these will be welcome additions.

Additionally, if Circus Ponies were to create an iPad version of their Notebook software this would be an amazing addition to the iPad which would make it infinitely more usable for attorneys. Specifically, either OmniOutliner or Circus Ponies Notebook would make taking depositions with the iPad very very easy and enjoyable, to the extent that a deposition can be enjoyable. In effect, no more playing the who sunk my battleship while asking questions over the top of the laptop screen thrown up as a barrier between you and the deponent. Similarly, either of these applications, if they supported an external monitor/projector hookup, would greatly increase the efficiency with which direct and cross examinations could be conducted at trial while simultaneously displaying the exhibit, document, or other evidence directly on screen for the jury and judge to observe.

Finally, look for Apple to create a feasible file transfer solution. The current method of transferring files back and forth is a complete mess. Requiring users to transfer files via iTunes is simply unworkable as it not only makes things unnecessarily complicated, but the net result is two different versions of a single file.

Sent from my iPad”

A few notes: Cut and paste from Dragon Dictation into WordPress did not work. Additionally, the screenshots, although taken directly on the iPad, were also uploadedDragon Dictate Error via a MacBook. Finally, Dragon Dictate has some kind of word limit to what it can handle (see screen shot). After dictating for a while, the app gives an error message that the server is busy, but if a new dictation note is started, it works just fine.