The iPad is the single best gadget you could purchase to improve your
productivity and effectiveness as a lawyer. This is from a litigation
point of view. This aim of this article is to give you a summary of
what can be done as well as to provide some guideposts should you take
the plunge and join the digital revolution.
First question: Which iPad should I get? Get the latest one with
the Retina display. Your eyes will love you for it. The price
difference between it and the iPad2 is negligible.
Next, the case / cover: You should get a good case that can double
as a stand. I use the Targus Versavu which allows the iPad to stand in
both landscape and portrait mode. This versatility is useful. A
stylus, that also contains a pen, should be added also because you’ll
still need to write on hardcopy documents, and the stylus is absolutely
necessary when you’re highlighting or underlining texts – this is
especially true if you have large fingers.
An important consideration is whether you should get the wi-fi only
version, or the one with the cellular network support. Go with the
latter unless you have wi-fi everywhere you go.
Why? Because lawyers get ideas at all times and at all places.
Having that light-bulb moment is only as good as the action you can take
after that. Certain things require instant action to achieve the
maximum effect. An important thing to note here, therefore, is that you
should subscribe to a cellular plan which only throttles your speed
when you hit your data quota – not one that cuts you off entirely. Ask
around before committing to a plan. I cannot overemphasize how crucial
this is.
Now that you have your swanky new iPad, do you jailbreak it? On
this, I fall on the ‘leave it as it is’ side of the fence. You’re a
lawyer, not a tech geek with too much time on your hands. So quit with
the experimentation and proceed from the premise that your iPad is a
tool
for you to be more productive and, hopefully, richer. Not something you
want to fiddle around with. Warranty will be voided if you jailbreak
it. So my advice: Don’t.
At this point you should create a Google account. This will allow
you access to the wealth of fantastic and free services Google offers
like email, calendar, word processing, cloud-based storage, RSS reader
and maps – to name but a few. I recommend Google because it’s stable
and it has worked very well for me the past 7 years. Bonus: Google
integrates very well with the iPad’s pre-installed apps.
Your final preliminary task will be to create an Apple ID and
register your credit card so that you can buy apps from the App Store.
If you don’t want to use your regular credit card, get a prepaid one and
load it with RM300. That should be enough to purchase all the apps
that I’ll be recommending.
Free apps that you
should immediately download are:-
- Dropbox (cloud-based storage)
- Evernote (cloud-based note-taking)
- Skitch (to annotate pictures)
- Skype (audio and video conferencing)
- AppShopper (for alerts on price reduction for apps that you might want to buy)
Free apps that you
should seriously consider downloading are:-
- Facebook (social networking)
- Twitter (social networking – but I use it mainly to keep in touch with breaking news)
- Flipboard (news aggregator)
- Zite (news aggregator)
- TED (for inspirational and informative talks)
- TimeCapture (for time billing)
- Wikipanion (this makes Wikipedia very readable)
- TripAdvisor (to book hotels and to find out where to eat when you’re out of town)
- Fit It (to reduce the resolution and size of photos taken with the iPad camera)
- iBooks (to read e-books)
Paid apps that you
should buy are:-
- Pages (for word processing)
- Instapaper (to read and organize articles from the web)
- PDF Expert (to read, annotate and sign PDFs – going totally paperless is almost possible with this app)
- CamScanner+ (to take photographs of documents and convert them to PDF)
- ProCamera (to take photos with date and time stamps – it’s a good overall photo app)
- Notability (to take notes if you like taking notes freehand with
your finger or stylus – otherwise, get the wireless Bluetooth Apple
keyboard for RM229)
- Bento (only if you are very proficient with databases and want to ‘tinker’ – this is a powerful tool)
- WolframAlpha (just trust me on this one)
- Sleep Gadget (for logging your sleep)
- Total Recall (mind mapping tool)
- 360 (to take panorama pictures)
- Money for iPad (to keep track of your money)
How you can use and should use the apps listed above (along with the
pre-installed ones like Calendar, Notes, Reminders, Maps, Safari, Mail
and YouTube) really depend on your creativity. The key is to first
decide what you want to achieve, and then see if you can do it with the
existing apps you have. If you cannot, or if you’re stuck, you should
head over to the App Store, or do some searches on the web or the Apple
forums. Chances are, someone has encountered the same problem and may
have already found a solution / shortcut for you. Or maybe there’s an
app that does exactly what you desire. The learning curve is not steep,
but neither is it easy.
You’ll need about 3-5 weeks of constant ‘messing around’ before you
see some positive results in your practice. And it helps if you do not,
under any circumstances, download any games –
Angry Birds
deserves a special mention. Playing games on the iPad will rob you
blind of what little time you have. This is the siren song. Listen to
it not.
The genius of the iPad is in its design. The touch function is
vastly superior to the way we’ve been interacting with computers –
keyboard and mouse. This tactile element is the very reason why the
iPad works so well for litigators. Our minds work both methodically and
in a free-ranging manner, depending on the problem we’re trying to
solve. The iPad assists us by nurturing both styles, in a way normal
computers simply cannot.
Imagine waking up to a half-formed strategy for a case conceived in a
dream. Do you walk to your desktop, boot it up and do your research?
You might. Do you reach for your laptop, boot it up, and do your
research? Probably, since there might be no walking involved. But if
you have an iPad by your bed, or under the pillow, ‘might’ and ‘probably
change to ‘most likely’ because there’s no boot up time, no walking,
and it’s like holding a magical piece of glass. That simple research
could be the key / catalyst that solves the issue for you. I’ve gotten
up a case in about 1-2 hours on the iPad that I know would’ve taken me
about 2-4 times longer if I had done it on my desktop or laptop. And
I’ve fallen asleep while researching / drafting more times than I can
remember. All this translates to more work done in small pockets of
time that I ‘steal’ for myself during the day. Long bus rides are no
longer for naps and listening to podcasts. They now include doing
actual work.
Let me end by giving you an example of how I use the iPad on a normal day:-
During my morning shower, I usually get most of my ideas. And it’s very easy to immediately jot them in the
Calendar,
Reminders,
Notes,
Total Recall, or
Evernote (sometimes after a quick search on the web with
Safari or
Wikipanion) app. This is
after the shower, of course.
While having breakfast, or commuting, I catch up with what’s happening socially on
Facebook, and read the news via
Flipboard,
Zite, or
Twitter, or all of them.
Let’s say on this hypothetical day, I’m going to mention a case on
behalf of an out-station lawyer. I’d have received all instructions via
email and PDF attachments. I view these with
Mail and annotate them with
PDF Expert. During the mention, I can take down notes with
Notability, or fire up
Pages,
link the keyboard, and type out the notes. These notes I can later
incorporate into my report (which I have the option of exporting as a
PDF to be signed with PDF Expert); and email to the instructing counsel.
Any hardcopy of documents that needs to be sent can first be
photographed and converted to PDF using
CamScanner+. The scanned copy will take minutes to reach that out-station lawyer. The hard copy, at most, takes a day.
Getting up a case is quite simple now with most law reports available online.
Safari, PDF Expert,
Instapaper and
Dropbox
will be your best friends in no time. Drafting of pleadings and
submissions is possible with Pages. But if you want more control of the
layout, all your work can be exported in MSWord format for final
formatting on your desktop / laptop.
Should you need to have a quick face-to-face chat,
Skype (works with wi-fi and cellular connections) or
FaceTime
(only works with a wi-fi connection) saves your time tremendously – no
commute, waiting or traffic jams. Just make sure you dress
appropriately, have a decent background / backdrop, and frame yourself
well.
I’ve yet to conduct a trial solely with the iPad, so I cannot comment
on this. (Of course it would be folly to so do if one doesn’t also
have the physical file on the bar table, or at least in the car boot,
just in case.)
Replacing your physical diary with the
Calendar
app on the iPad is a no-brainer. Synchronization with Google Calendar
is excellent, and you have 2 free iCloud calendars. Creating and
rescheduling appointments are so simple and intuitive, you’ll never want
to work with a desk diary again.
A note about the price of apps: Depending on the maker of the app,
prices can either fluctuate greatly, slightly, or not at all. This is
where
AppShopper comes in. It allows you to
follow certain apps that pique your interest, but not enough that you
would buy it immediately at its current price. All you have to do is
make a note of it, and when the price drops, AppShopper will notify you.
I’m aware that there are many other good apps that I haven’t
mentioned in this article. But I can only recommend what I’ve actually
used. I do not recommend willy-nilly. I have received no
gratification, neither in cash or in kind, from any of the product
developers / makers that I’ve recommended in this article. They’re good
products – plain and simple.
And, if for some strange reason you
wish to thank me, please consider donating to a charity that has a good
administration expense ratio – Yes, this is the whole ‘pay it forward’
thing.
If you do plan to get the iPad, I wish you much fun with your new
gadget. Remember, it’s not a toy. It’s not a glorified game machine.
And it’s not only a media consumption device. It’s a money-making
machine that’s both sexy and magical.
Good luck with your practice, with or without the iPad.
Explore these apps by clicking on them:
1.
360
2.
AppShopper
3.
Bento
4.
Camscanner+
5.
Dropbox
6.
Evernote
7.
Facebook
8.
Flipboard
9.
Fit It
10.
Google
11.
iBooks
12.
Instapaper
13.
Money for iPad
14.
Notability
15.
Pages
16.
PDF Expert
17.
ProCamera
18.
Skitch
19.
Skype
20.
Sleep Gadget
21.
TED
22.
TimeCapture
23.
Total Recall
24.
TripAdvisor
25.
Twitter
26.
Wikipanion
27.
Wolfram Alpha
28.
Zite
