As an attorney practicing in the only civil law jurisdiction in the U.S., I was intrigued to get an e-mail the other day from Max Malta, the developer of Vade Mecum. "Vade mecum" literally means "go with me" in Latin, and the phrase generally refers to a useful manual that one always keeps close at hand. The Vade Mecum iPhone app includes all of the major sources of Brazilian law, not only the Civil Code of Brazil (which, like the Louisiana Civil Code, is derived from the Napoleonic Code), but dozens of other sources of law including Brazil's Federal Constitution, Code of Civil Procedure, Criminal Code, Commercial Code, Traffic Code, Labor Laws, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, etc.
You can browse through articles one by one, jump to a specific article number, or search for laws containing words in the text.
I don't speak Portuguese or practice law in Brazil so I can't say much about the content -- and admittedly I am stretching to even title this post a "review" of the app -- but it looks like a comprehensive and useful iPhone app for anyone dealing with Brazilian law. The reviews on the iTunes app store are excellent, and the Brazilian iPhone website Blog do iPhone gives the app a very favorable review (click here for an English translation via Google), even noting that one Brazilian attorney remarked after seeing Vade Mecum that he would buy an iPhone just to be able to use this app and have all of the key laws in his pocket. The comments on that Blog do iPhone post make it clear that there are many happy users of this app in Brazil, including lawyers and law students. (One commenter notes: "At last, a legal program for my iPhone!" I wish we had more law-related apps here in the U.S., but I guess we are doing much better than iPhone users in other countries.)
It's nice to know that attorneys in other countries are taking advantage of their iPhones just as we are here in the States, and I wish Max the best of luck as an iPhone developer.
Click here to get Vade Mecum ($9.99): 
