Like many iPad owners, I find myself wishing that I could covert all of my paper periodical subscriptions into iPad subscriptions. I enjoy reading magazines on a bright iPad screen, and I like having a large collection of reading materials on my iPad rather that carrying around a bunch of magazines when I travel. Thus, I am always happy to learn that another good magazine is now available in a digital version.
Most lawyers are familiar with The American Lawyer (often just called “Am Law”), a monthly magazine covering the business of law firms. Am Law has a free iPhone and iPad app, and it is excellent. (Disclosure: The American Lawyer is part of the Law.com network and iPhone J.D. is an affiliate of the Law.com network — which mostly just means that I include that banner at the right that shows you headlines from recent Law.com stories and I receive some revenue from the ad that appears below that banner. Am Law didn’t ask me to write this review; I just find that I’m really enjoying the app.)
On the iPhone, you can use the Am Law app to view the current and last few recent editions. Tap on the cover of the magazine to see the contents.
You can tap the View button to browse through the pages of the magazine. You can bring up a pop-up window at the bottom showing thumbnails of the pages so that you can easily jump to another page. It is nice to see every full page of the magazine, but unfortunately even at the maximum zoom it is difficult to read the small text on an iPhone screen.
Fortunately, you are not limited to reading just a scan of the page. You can also tap on articles in the index and read a text version of articles, with controls that let you increase or decrease the font size. You an also easily search that full text to find all articles in recent editions that contain a word.
You also tap the News & Views button to see the latest articles from the Am Law website.
Am Law is very nicely implemented on the iPhone, but where it really shines is on the iPad where the app is designed to take full advantage of the iPad screen. I have no problems reading articles in the full page view, and it is easy to swipe through the pages of the magazine to read each issue.
You can also turn your iPad sideways to view two pages at a time:
The content of Am Law has always been great, but I must admit that it has been a long time since I subscribed to the paper magazine. Instead, I prefer to read Am Law articles online. Now that there is a free digital version of the magazine, I find myself reading the magazine again, sometimes on my iPhone but mostly on my iPad. I’m sure that Am Law likes this because I am once again looking at the ads, and frankly I don’t mind the ads in a niche magazine like Am Law or Macworld because the ads are likely to be targeted to my areas of interest anyway. I only have one real complaint with this app; I wish that the scans of each page were of a higher resolution and I wish that you could zoom in even more. Nevertheless, if you are a lawyer with any interest in the business of practicing law, I encourage you to download this app for your iPhone and iPad.
Click here to get The American Lawyer (free): 
Wow that’s amazing, I bet all magazines will be making the switch soon enough. Love the magazine, and I’ll definitely try the app.