iPad Apps For Attorneys

FastCase gives you free access to primary law from all 50 states, in addition to federal law. You get it all – cases, statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions! You're not downloading content onto your iPad – so, if you’re concerned about using up those precious GBs, this is a plus. Between having all the legal resources you need and sortable search with best results at the top - all for free - FastCase is a must have!

If you often find yourself without internet access when you need to do some research, you should do an App Store search for Tekk Innovations. This developer offers many legal reference apps, such as Illinois Compiled Statutes. The apps are a bit pricey and only offer a basic text search, but you're downloading entire law books, so you can leave those heavy tomes at the office.

LawBox is an app that is trying to combine the advantage of FastCase – all your legal references in one app – with the advantage of downloading actual content into your iPad. The app is free, with some Code packages already included. For a limited time, if you’re willing to be a guinea pig, you get free content while they are working on some new features. So, QUICK, take advantage!

Although Black’s isn’t the only legal dictionary available in the App Store, it is, by far, the BEST. This app is VERY pricey, but as the saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” With such features as 45,000 terms at your disposal, ability to bookmark, internal hyper-linking between words referenced within definitions, utilization of West’s key number system and spelling and audio pronunciations for over 7,000 terms, you are going to wonder how you ever lived without it! And, this is a MUST HAVE for all law students!

iPleading was created by an attorney out of sheer frustration. His goal was to develop an app that created a PDF document that would always be properly formatted for State or Federal Court. Just fill out a few text boxes, enter your email address, then click “Create and Send”. When you’re ready to type up your pleading, simply go to your email, open the attachment in a PDF program and you’ll have a perfectly formatted document in no time! The developer is already planning a number of updates for future versions.

Audiotorium Notes, though not specifically for attorneys, has a lot of potential to be very helpful. This is so much more than just a note taking and audio recording app! It has TextExpander integration, which allows you to enter frequently used phrases, etc. with just a few keystrokes. It also offers Dropbox integration, so your notes can be backed up to the cloud. Don't worry, though, if that’s not your cup of tea, you can also email your files. Your notes are organized by Category and Subject, so you can easily find which note you need. And if that’s not enough, it also allows you to record hours of audio, with each note. Oh, did I mention it will continue to record while you use other apps!?! Also, tap-to-jump ability will be coming in a couple of months AND the developer tells me he is working on an update that will have features like nothing ever seen in the App Store, so get this one NOW!

iJuror is your “go to” app when doing jury selection. You just click on a “chair”, “scroll” to select details about the juror; type in their name; workplace; hometown; and you can even add notes. Save your changes and an avatar replaces the chair image. If you’re in a hurry, it even gives a “Quick Enter” option for entering gender, ethnicity, and name, only. It also gives you the ability to notate Peremptory dismissals and dismissals for Cause. No more scribbling a diagram on a notepad that will end up torn and coffee stained!

If you want a better way of notating juror observations, keeping notes tied to a specific juror, having those observations and notes time-stamped, and even tracking the amount of time used by both sides of the case, then you need to get this app! JuryTracker has the potential to greatly improve your understanding of what the jury understands and believes.

Most states now have Continuing Education requirements for attorneys. iCLE helps you keep track of courses taken and how many credits earned. You can even filter by date. And, you can track the courses taken by as many attorneys as you would like to add. Also, just click on the “iTunes U CLE” button and you get a list of subjects; click on one of the subjects and iTunes will pop up with a list of available free podcasts for that area of study. Now how convenient is that!?!

TrialPad allows attorneys to present their Exhibits in court, via a projector. Create a Case file/folder and you will have the ability to store, organize and annotate your PDFs. You add PDFs to your Case file, via email. Here’s a fun fact (or, more accurately, frustrating fact) - if you already have 10 apps listed in the “Open in” pop-up, you are going to have to delete some of those listed apps before TrialPad will show up as an option. This is an Apple issue, not a TrialPad issue and I am really hoping Apple corrects this limitation, soon - I had to delete eight apps before I could add a PDF to TrialPad. Sniff, sniff. Anyway, the layout is fairly straightforward compared to similar PDF type apps, so you won’t have too much of a problem moving around. My one other frustration was that when I was annotating my PDF, every time I lifted my finger after using the pen, redact or highlight, I would have to tap the option again before I could use it, again. This was especially aggravating in the pen mode – who wants to tap again, just to dot your “I” or cross your “t”? Let alone, if you want to write a sentence. And, the capital letter ‘I”? Forget about it! That letter alone takes three taps! This is something I hope is addressed in the next update. A nice feature is the ease of duplicating a PDF, as a Hot Doc. This would be especially helpful in situations where you are illustrating an Exhibit, which you want to annotate based on different points of view – such as, witness(es), defendant, victim(s), etc. This is a pricey app, when compared to the average paid app. But, TrialPad is not a game or even meant for personal use. This is a professional app and created specifically for the busy litigator.