I didn’t want to write this. No, really, I didn’t want to write this. You see, other lawyers read this blog. Other lawyers are my competition. ‘Paperless’ by David Sparks makes it far too easy for other lawyers, a.k.a. my competition, to adopt a paperless system. Also, I’m quite jealous. David Sparks has written a book that I wish I could have written. Available, for now, in iBooks format only.

But, here’s the thing. The book is just so amazingly straightforward, awesome, and educational that I can’t help but pass it on. If you ever wondered how you could possibly go paperless, start here, look no further. David Sparks has written not only something that is beautiful to look at and read, but also entertaining and informative in a way that allows even the most entrenched Luddite to move forward with technology in their life. So, if you have an iPad and can spare the five bucks (come on you can spare five bucks) go pick up this book.

Annotating Rules of Evidence, Civil Procedure etc. in ‘rulebook.’

The app allows you to add bookmarks, highlights (limited to a single color throughout your rule sets) and notes. All of these items ‘stick’ whenever the rule gets re-written or updated. Notes, highlights and bookmarks can be seen in a summary pane so you can quickly jump to those sections. A hand-annotated Federal Rules of Evidence hardbound copy will eventually become obsolete through re-writes of the rules, forcing you to hand transfer your notes over to a new book. rulebook attempts to correct that problem by carrying over your annotations to the new rule set.

And, it almost gets there. Recently the Utah Rules of Appellate procedure received an update. Some language was altered, some language was deleted and moved to a new section. Testing indicated that, where the language was merely altered, the annotations stuck. But, with the deleted and moved language, the annotations themselves were lost, although the Bookmark/Note/Highlight still shows in the summary pane.

User Interface on rulebook

It is both a bright future, and still a bit quirky when it comes to the interface. Rulebook uses the standard iPad interface with items in the left pane and content on the right. The unique feature is the ability to open multiple rules in a separate ‘window’ in the right pane. This works for cross-referenced rules as well. So, reading Utah R. Evid. 608′s cross-reference to Utah R. Evid. 403, tapping on the hyperlinked ‘Rule 403′ opens a new pane, allowing you to read the reference without losing your place.

There are, however, a few quirks. Quickly jumping back and forth between rules, closing rule sets and opening new rules led to a freeze on one of the windows. Also, while the navigation is unique, it can feel a bit odd at times. A tabbed interface alá Safari/Firefox might be more intuitive for displaying the cross-referenced rule.

Finally, the app does include a decent search feature which allows searching for a Phrase, All Words or Any Word, no boolean yet. The nice part about the search feature is that the results pane pulls up individual sub-sections of a single rule, allowing you to quickly get to the relevant section in a long rule as opposed to hunting around. The search pane results also tell you the number of hits in each result. Unfortunately, there is no next-previous search hit function and you are forced to return to the search pane to jump around.

Right now, rule sets are only available for the Federal courts, California, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Nersey, New York, Texas and Utah. The Federal Rules of Evidence are free so you can get a feel for the app and decide if it’s something that fits for you. Other rule sets are very reasonably priced at at .99¢ each. If you are lucky enough to live in one of the currently covered jurisdictions, rulebook is well worth picking up and using. The developer is a practicing attorney and uses his own app on a daily basis. Speaking with him recently, there are some really big plans behind the app and things in the works. rulebook should get much better with time.

Further, apps which were formerly oriented toward traditional PDF annotation (you know, highlights, boxes, comments, but the pen tool sucks) now offer a serious handwriting experience. Specifically, PDFExpert, GoodReader and iAnnotate all allow a decent ink and paper feel for annotating with handwritten notes. GoodReader even incorporates a zoom box and palm protection. So….

Vote for your favorite handwritten note taking app on the iPad:

Why the Verizon iPad? Wireless Presentation.

There are three ‘flavors’ for the latest iPad. First, wireless only which means no internet access unless you are connected to a wireless network. For some people, they don’t care about needing to piggyback on strange and unfamiliar wireless networks. If you fear the seedy back alleys of free wireless, go with an iPad that has built in cellular technology from either Verizon or AT&T (sorry, not available on Sprint at this time).

More specifically, go with the Verizon version. Why? (1) Tethering. (2) You can tether the AppleTV to your iPad and, yes, that means you can now carry one less device for wireless presentations in court (or elsewhere). With an AppleTV tethered to your iPad, you can also use AirPlay to stream back to an AppleTV connected to a projector.

Finally, get as much memory as you can afford. Although cloud storage is becoming ubiquitous, it’s still nice to have as much headroom as you can get.

The retina display is truly amazing. There is a notable difference in legibility for these tired lawyer eyes.

Dictation also seems to work over the Verizon LTE network. However, you must be connected to the Internet in some fashion in order to use dictation. This means that if you are airborne with wireless turned off for the iPad in airplane mode, you will not be able to dictate. (Probably much the relief of your co-passengers.) The dictation button pops up, so far, in virtually every application that has a textbased entry. Additionally, the dictation app seems to dictate punctuation very well, as well as long sentences which can sometimes be a result of having worked in the legal field for far too many years. There is a noticeable warmth which generates from the back of the iPad with extensive use. I cannot tell that if this is a result of the cellular network and the dictation app, or just a side effect of the unit itself.

With the addition of the ability to dictate, the iPad will quickly find itself a home in many lawyer hands. This tool, the iPad, and the accuracy of the dictation, really elevate what was previously a difficult and time-consuming task of creating documents into an easy-to-use process. Testing in Circus Ponies Notebook also allows dictation. This really will be a game changer. The ability to quickly create outlines, within a trial notebook, by speaking out loud will certainly alter my use of Circus Ponies Notebook. Previously, most heavy text entry based work was conducted on the Macintosh itself. However, with the ability to dictate, this changes everything. Notably, if you’re dictating long passages, the dictation mode will occasionally pause during dictation and then allow you to resume dictation by tapping the microphone button again. further testing reveals that dictation mode also works in OmniOutliner, iThought HD, and yes, even Twitter. Good luck keeping those tweets under 140 characters.

If you previously purchased an iPad 2 and are a lawyer, you may seriously wish to consider upgrading to the latest version. The dictation feature is simply amazing, the retina display is crisp bright and beautiful, and, at least on the Verizon LTE, internet speeds are lightning fast.

This post was dictated, read, reviewed and corrected entirely on the iPad.

By the way, the screenshot was created and annotated using Skitch, a really awesome and free screen grab utility that works well with Evernote (and is owned by Evernote). Skitch is also available for, and equally awesome on, the iPad.

The idea behind Oral Argument is to provide a notepad/outline style presentation of the points you wish to make during oral argument. Each ‘page’ can be very long, formatted in an outline mode, and employ rich text formatting and highlighting. Each page for a particular argument is displayed across the top with a separate tab button. Perhaps the nicest trick is that you can insert a hyperlink style ‘popup.’ So, when arguing and you cite a particular case to the court, you can tap the hyperlink and get a popup with the specific language. In this way, you don’t clutter up your outline, but still have quick access to those special quotes if you want them. The app also provides a sidebar for typing in notes as your oral argument progresses. Finally, the app includes a timer at the top. Courts where I have argued, and which impose a time limit, invariably have something on the podium which tells me how much time is left. So, although novel, the necessity or usefulness of a built in timer is not all that great.

Overall, however, the app shows itself as a 1.0 venture. There is no search feature. Creating outlines requires using an archaic interface reminiscent of  MS Windows’ Notepad application. Adding insult to the tiny icon set of such a text editor, everything must be edited in landscape mode. Changing font size requires a return to the edit mode. Further, editing from your laptop or desktop requires a ‘subscription’ to TabLit’s ‘premium’ service. The app costs $19.99, a subscription based model for getting text into the app will not win over users. Moreover, there is not much to distinguish this app from other note taking apps, including the handwritten variety. In fact, getting an outline into the app is so difficult, it would be easier to create an outline in a word processor, save it as a PDF, and then take notes on that PDF in GoodNotes, Remarks or Notability.

While it seems like a great idea on paper, the reality is far from appealing. Not only does the connection frequently fail, OnLive Desktop also stands as a solid reminder just how ugly and unworkable Microsoft Office becomes on a tablet interface (not to mention how unworkable Windows 7 is on a tablet interface).

Compare & ContrastMicrosoft Word OnLive Desktop vs. Pages on iPad

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