If you are looking for a great way to get your CLE hours in 2013, my favorite CLE every year is ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago. It is a great opportunity every spring to learn about technology, see some of the latest in legal tech, and (best of all) spend some time with some great people. This year, TECHSHOW is April 4 through 6.
For those interested in the iPhone and iPad, the second and third day will have lots to offer. The Tablet and Smartphone track on Friday, April 5 includes four sessions: (1) Tablet Wars 2013, (2) The 4x4 Challenge: Top Apps for Every Platform, (3) Mobile Collaboration and (4) Batten Down the Hatches: Mobile Security for Lawyers. I'll be co-presenting the mobile security session along with Pittsburgh attorney David Ries and Illinois attorney Aaron Brooks. Ries and Brooks know a ton about security and technology, and I'm honored to be on a panel with them. It's going to be a great session.
Then on Saturday, April 6, South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens and I will present iOS in Action, a session devoted to getting the most out of an iPhone and iPad in the law practice. Stevens is well known in Mac circles (he has published The Mac Lawyer since 2006), and he and I gave a similar presentation focused on the iPhone back in 2010. I just took a look at our slides from 2010 and it was an interesting walk down memory lane. While we did mention quite a few third party apps, the iPhone was still so new for so many attorneys that we devoted a lot of that presentation to mastering the basics. The final slide of that March of 2010 presentation was called "The Future" and previewed what Ben and I thought would be significant events in 2010:
- The original iPad going on sale on April 3, 2010. Yeah, that one turned out to be pretty big.
- Apple releasing iOS 4. Apple previewed iOS 4 a few days after our presentation, and sure enough it did include some major enhancements that I still use every day such as fast app switching, the ability to open a mail attachment in another app, support for Bluetooth keyboards, the ability to organize apps into folders, and Apple's iBooks app.
- Apple working on the next phone, which we predicted would be announced on June 28, 2010. We were a few weeks off on that date — the iPhone 4 was actually announced on June 7, 2010 and went on sale on June 29, 2010. The iPhone 4 introduced the amazing Retina display and a radical new, thin design which Apple then improved in the iPhone 5.
- More apps and accessories. That was an easy prediction, but sure enough we did see some great new apps in 2010 such as Fastcase on the iPhone and then the iPad, the very popular Camera+ app which Apple actually removed from the app store for a while because it let you use the volume button to take a picture (a feature that all iPhones can do now), an update to the Chase app that let you deposit a check using the iPhone's camera (an amazing feature that every bank should support), plus some games that would go on to become incredibly popular including Angry Birds and Infinity Blade.
Now that three years have passed, I'm thrilled to be reunited with Ben Stevens.
I'm most excited about the iPhone and iPad aspects of TECHSHOW, but that is actually just a very small part of what TECHSHOW has to offer. There are also whole tracks devoted to going paperless, social media, litigation tech, e-discovery, the Mac, tracks for small firms and large firms, and many other topics. If you are a lawyer and you have any interest in technology, you will find much to like no matter what your interests.
The keynote speaker this year will David Pogue of the New York Times. Pogue is a fantastic and entertaining speaker and I'm impressed that the TECHSHOW board was able to get him as a speaker; he is in high demand. In addition to being a tech columnist, he is a former broadway conductor and he usually brings a keyboard and plays amusing tech-related songs during his presentations. (One of my favorites: I Want an iPhone, which he wrote back in 2007 when the original iPhone debuted.) Pogue knows a ton about the iPhone and iPad, which is why I frequently link to his Times articles in my Friday In the news post. The picture at right is me and David Pogue when I had a chance to meet him back in 2006.
And as if that wasn't enough of a reason to go to TECHSHOW this year, they are once again featuring lots of Taste of Techshow dinners where you can socialize with other attorneys interested in legal technology topics. Dallas attorney Tom Mighell, the author of iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, and I are hosting a dinner for iPhone / iPad users on Thursday night, April 4th, at Wildfire restaurant. I'm sure that is going to be a fun night.
Here is a video that I created during one of my TECHSHOW presentations last year, showing the audience just moments before being crushed. It just goes to show you that you never know what will happen at TECHSHOW.
[By the way, I used the free Action Movie FX on my iPhone to make that: 
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If you want to learn about tech, watch some amazing presentations, and meet lots of great people, then make plans now to attend TECHSHOW this April. I hope to see you in Chicago!
