Above the Law (ATL) is a website that accurately describes itself as a “legal tabloid.” A large number of the posts relate to law firm gossip, but the site tackles just about anything of interest to lawyers at large law firms. It was voted the top news website on the 2008 ABA Journal Blawg 100.
Yesterday, ATL Associate Editor Kashmir Hill asked me to name the top ten iPhone apps for lawyers, a topic that has been covered before on this website. My response led to this post on the ATL website. The ABA Journal picked up on the story here, adding a note that the number of iPhone-using attorneys has soared in the latest ABA Technology Survey.
Here are some additional thoughts on the ten great third party apps that I mentioned in the ATL post:
- QuickOffice. My full thoughts on QuickOffice are in these posts: 1, 2 and 3. I don’t have much more to add except to note that the app works very well, and I especially like the new ability to have the app show up as a virtual hard drive on my Mac or PC so I can drag and drop documents. Of course, I am still very curious to see what DataViz’s Documents To Go will look like, which DataViz says is due “early to mid May” and which I presume means very soon.
- Cliff Maier
reference apps. I’ve posted about these apps here: 1, 2, 3 and 4. I continue to use these great apps all of the time. - DaysFrom. I also like DateCalcPro, but most of the time I find myself using DaysFrom to calculate days, for the reasons I previously posted here.
- Wikipanion. My review is here.
- Google Mobile App. My review is here.
- Various weather apps. I like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather apps, but I really love the version of the Weather Underground website that is formatted for
the iPhone web browser. Just go to i.wund.com using Safari on your iPhone. Even better, once you are there, enter your zip code to see your local weather and then hit the + sign in Safari to “Add to Home Screen.” That will give you an icon that you can easily tap to get your latest local weather. One nice new feature is an iPhone version of the “Interactive Wundermap” which I can only describe as sort of a cross between a weather radar and the Google Maps app. (Click here to see the Interactive Wundermap on a computer.) You can double-tap to zoom in and easily pan and scan on an iPhone to see the weather conditions. Very impressive stuff. - Twitterific. My first Twitter client on the iPhone was the 1.0 version of Twitterific. But that app had limitations, and the free TwitterFon app (which I mentioned here) soon became my favorite Twitter client. Earlier this month, The Iconfactory released Twitterific 2.0, and wow, what a difference a 2.0 makes. This app includes tons of advanced features, has a great interface, and is really a joy to use. I’m currently using the free version, and it is now my favorite iPhone Twitter app. It has ads, but the ads are unobtrusive, and for only $3.99 you can get a version without ads. If you use Twitter, I strongly encourage you to check it out. Click here to get Twitterific (free):
- Facebook. I haven’t posted a review of this app (although I mentioned it here) but this is a really useful app. If you use Facebook, you have no excuse not to get this free app.
- Black’s Law Dictionary. My review is here. There have been some minor tweaks and bug fixes since I posted my review. One large change (that I noted in my review was going to happen soon) is that if you now try to go to Westlaw on your iPhone by going to www.westlaw.com, you are redirected to wireless.westlaw.com. I understand the thinking here; wireless.westlaw.com is certainly much faster. Even so, I prefer the full Westlaw on my iPhone, and if you do too, you now need to go to web2.westlaw.com to get the “real” Westlaw on your iPhone.
- NetNewsWire. I don’t believe that I’ve mentioned this app before, but it is a great, free RSS reader on the iPhone. Click here to get NetNewsWire (free):
Thanks to ATL and the ABA Journal for these two posts and for recognizing the growing number of attorneys using iPhones.
The April 2 post gets it right. No list of essential apps, particularly one for lawyers, is complete without Air Sharing Pro. That app is amazing. It not only lets you connect your computer to your iPhone like a USB thumb drive and drag files from one to the other, and read the files offline, but you can email, print, connect to a file server, move files around on the phone, play back audio and video and slide shows, look at photos, and who-knows-what-else. And when you open a PDF in Air Sharing Pro, you can navigate with the table of contents, and unlike most other apps on the iPhone (including Quickoffice) it can open large PDF files without crashing. And you can zip and unzip. You can’t edit in Air Sharing, but really, do you want to edit a Word file on your iPhone?
Just my opinion of course, but I think Air Sharing Pro is a lot more useful for lawyers than, say, DaysFrom and the weather apps.
Another app,not for iPhone but for iPads, is Jury Duty. This is a highly professional app that will make the trial lawyer’s voir dire very effective.
Hello, I stumbled across you website and wanted to share my proffession. We design custom mobile apps for Attorneys, the apps can be design to do whatever you want.
Some of the functions we include in the Applications are:
-Blood Alcohol Calculator Interface
-Stability Test Interface
-Client Resources Library
-Custom Marketing Game
-Audio Recording Interface
-Photo Crash/Ticket Submital Interface
-Bail Bonding Help Interface
We have one of the largest Attorney App portfolios on the market and plenty to demo.
You can view them by going to http://www.SpacemanMobile.com and clicking on portfolio.
Just thought I would share.
Thanks,
J