One of the most useful apps that a lawyer can have on an iPhone or iPad is an app that contains often-used rules and statutes. If you practice civil litigation in federal court, then you ought to have a copy of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on your iPhone and iPad so that you can quickly and easily look up the relevant rule, whether you are at your desk or in court. There are several FRCP apps to choose from and some of them are free (such as LawStack, which I reviewed last year). But I have long been a fan of the Louisiana law apps created by New Orleans attorney Matt Miller, and now he has created a $1 app for the iPhone and iPad containing the FRCP. It's a great app that I highly recommend.
The app lets you get into the rules several different ways. If you want to browse, there are two ways to do so. First, you can browse through titles and then look at the rules under each title. Second, you can just scroll through a long list of all of the rules, with title indicators (roman numerals) on the right that you can use to quickly jump to the right part of the rules.
Tapping on the rule gives you the full text of the rule, and arrows at the top let you browse back and forth through rules. Plus, the app includes a feature I haven't seen in similar apps: scroll down to below the text of the rule (or tap the "Jump Down" link at the top right to quickly jump there) and you see links to additional information on the Internet selected by the author of the app as potentially relevant such as forms, law review articles, advisory notes, etc. It is not a long list of links for each rule, but it is helpful to have something extra to go a little bit further in your research if you want to do so.
One of the most useful features of an app like this is a powerful search function, and this app has one. Enter one or more words and the app lets you decide whether you want to search for all words (AND) any words (OR) or the exact phrase typed. Tap return and then you see a list of rules showing you the hits. Tap on a search result and see the full text of the rule with the search terms highlighted in yellow.
Once you find a relevant rule you can tap the heart to save it to a list of favorites, or you can tap the button next to the heart to e-mail the full text of the rule, or from that same button you can print the rule (if your iPhone or iPad is configured to work with a printer). And of course, you can just use the normal iOS tools to select some text from a rule, copy the text, and then paste it into an e-mail or another app. Moreover, if you forget to save the results of a search, tap the "More" button at the bottom to see some other options, one of which is a link to all of your recent searches.
If you go to the Settings app on the iPhone and then tap the FRCP icon, you can change some of the settings for this app. First, you can increase or decrease the text size. (The screenshots above use the default 12 point font size.) Second, you can turn off the feature of saving your search history, which I suppose adds privacy.
This is a universal app, which means that it will run on both an iPhone and an iPad. The app takes full advantage of the larger iPad screen, with a list on the left and the full text on the right:
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I know the author of this app. We both practice law in New Orleans, and our daughters go to school together. Having said that, my enthusiasm for this app is not because of the author, but instead because this app includes all of the features that I would ask for in an app like this. It is easy to browse, it is easy to search, it works on both the iPhone and the iPad, and it is easy to copy text or export to an e-mail. There are free apps out there that contain the federal rules, but they don't include all of the features of this app. Plus, the app only costs a buck so you can easily afford it, and I'd rather pay for apps like this to give the author a financial incentive to continue to update the app. If you handle civil cases in federal court, this is a great app to get for your iPhone and/or iPad.
Click here to get Federal Civil Procedure by Matt Miller ($0.99): 
