What iPhone apps for lawyers are needed?

When people ask me about my favorite apps for the iPhone, it occurs to me that while a few are legal-specific apps such as copies of rules and statutes and Black's Law Dictionary, many of the apps most useful to lawyers are the same apps that are useful to others -- Mail, Contacts, Maps, Quickoffice, Twitterific, Facebook, various weather apps, etc.  In other words, while lawyers have lots of great iPhone apps to use, not many of them are lawyer-specific.

With WWDC going on this week, a lot of smart iPhone developers are thinking about new apps to create for which there is a demand.  This has got me thinking -- what additional apps would it be nice to see in the legal arena?  I'm not the only one having these thoughts.  I recently received an e-mail from Jeff Nosanov, a new lawyer who recently got his J.D. from New York Law School and his LL.M. in Space and Telecommunications Law from the University of Nebraska.  (What an interesting LL.M. to get!)  Although Jeff is a new lawyer, he is also an iPhone programmer, and he told me that he was also wondering about the unmet app needs of iPhone-using attorneys.

I would love to see iPhone apps from some of the major developers of software used by law firms, such as a Westlaw app, an Interwoven Worksite (document management) app...

UPDATE: Just a few hours after this post went up, I see that Interwoven, recently purchased by Autonomy, is releasing an iPhone app for iManage Worksite.  I really look forward to checking this out.  Here is a press release and a demo.  And now, I return you to this regularly scheduled post...

...a client for Elite (time entry and bill mangement), etc., but these are not the sort of apps to be created by developers outside of those companies, unless they are retained by the companies themselves.  What would be a great app for lawyers that an independent developer could create?

Nothing is coming to my mind right now.  For example, I can't think of any lawyer-specific apps that I used to use on my old Treo 650, and I've searched the Internet for lawyer-specific apps for the Blackberry and haven't found anything that isn't already available for the iPhone.  But I have the nagging feeling that I am just not thinking of something obvious.  Thus, I'm asking the readers of iPhone J.D. to help me crowdsource this question.  Do you have a good idea for an iPhone app for lawyers?  If so, I would love to hear about it in an e-mail, or better yet post a comment so that others can also see your ideas.  Maybe an enterprising developer will see your request and create an app that can benefit all of us.

Comments

[Charles Jannace]

I'm selfish. I have accounts with Lexis and Amicus Attorney. I know the chances are slim but I'd love iPhone apps for each.

[Jerry]

I'd like to see an app that would easily allow you to log in to PACER to access and view court documents, since there are so many steps you have to go through just on a regular computer, let alone trying to do it on the phone.

[Maurice Levy, Esq.]

Both of my favorite work apps have desktop counterparts that sync up with the phone, either over wifi, or via the cloud:
Omnifocus is a top notch task and project manager app, but has a few drawbacks that are disappointing considering the high price. The biggest problems are launch time for the iphone app and slow synching speed. They're getting better with successive releases, but at the price ($80 for the desktop, $20 for the iphone app), these really should have been fixed at the outset. Things is another somewhat cheaper option, but I haven't tried it extensively. I bought Omnifocus because it syncs to the cloud rather than over a local wifi network, so although it's slow, it's always up to date.

I'm also using Bento quite a bit, very useful alternative/companion to excel for crunching patent docket data. Very polished, and combines a lot of the best features of excel and itunes for creating rule-based collections. It doesn't scale to multiple users though - it's strictly a personal database.

The other essential apps are mostly for travel: Maps, Citytransit, Stationstops (Metro-north schedule), Bank of America, Flighttrack.

I second a West or Lexis standalone app.

I haven't sprung for Black's law dictionary ($50 is a bit much when I have a paper copy on my desk), I also don't have quickoffice - the built in viewing of documents is fine most of the time, and typing anything more than a short email is tedious, so it's not like I'm missing out. If the 3.0 software allows for keyboards, my thinking might change.

[Mark A. Cowan]

I would use apps for Bryan Garner's Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage and the more general Garner's Modern American Usage. I use these print sources all the time. For years, Garner has been the editor in chief of Black's Law Dictionary, and he's the top authority on legal writing in the Milky Way Galaxy.

[Ryan S.]

I use Dropbox (a website, not an app, but it does have a good iPhone interface) to access copies of statutes, rules, and other documents I don't mind keeping in the cloud. It's free for the first 2 GBs, which is more than enough for the few files I actually need on my phone. No affiliation with Dropbox, just a pleased user.

[Katherine Mize]

I would like to see the rules of ethics and e-versions of O'Connor publications.

[Charles Jannace]

I use Dragon Naturally Speaking on a couple of my PCs. I can't say enough about it. Surely, it wouldn't be too much to ask for a Dragon iPhone app with the new firmware.

[R. Andrew Smith]

Just a heads up on dragon, the new version can do server side transciption from sound files. The additionof voice notes in OS 3.0 would make for an incredible combination of technology, particularly for us virtual law office types. If dragon were to release an iPhone app, it should be able to use the voice note audio format and have the ability to perform a remote upload for back end processing. Alas that is likely not in the cards.

[Allison]

I had time reporter for timeslips on my treo 650. I would love an iPhone app that integrates with timeslips. I hate carrying two PDA s around and don't want to re enter the information when I get back to the office.