From time to time, attorneys who read iPhone J.D. write to tell me how they are using their iPhone or iPad in their practice. I love to read these stories, and with permission I like to share some of them here on iPhone J.D. I recently heard from William Axtell, a solicitor in London with the law firm Charles Russell LLP. Will is a corporate lawyer, and his areas of practice include equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions. Before joining his current law firm, he worked in-house at Vodafone, so he has a background as well as a passion for the technology and telecom sectors. He currently uses an iPhone 5, an iPad 2 and a Macbook Air.
I asked Will to describe the apps that he uses in his law practice that he would recommend to others. Here is what he told me:
- OmniFocus — a powerful task manager which allows you to organise tasks by project and context. OmniFocus syncs across all my devices and is a great personal assistant. This has pride of place in my iPhone real estate — it lives on the dock together with Phone, Mail and Safari. Getting into the OmniFocus ecosystem is not cheap but it helps me everyday and I would very much recommend it. [Click here for OmniFocus for iPhone ($19.99): Click here for OmniFocus for iPad ($39.99): ]
- NotesPlus — a fantastic notes app. I tend to use a stylus but you can type as well. It can record audio (useful for meetings) and you can also insert pictures and grab stuff from websites. The great thing is that you can erase stuff, move things around, change font colours etc. It even converts handwritten text to typed text! You cannot do that with a Moleskin! The developer also gives great support and keeps pushing the boundaries. Check it out! [My review is here. Click here to get Notes Plus ($6.99): ]
- GoodReader — I use this to store documents that I need to use on the go. It contains marketing material that I can show to clients, key statutes and cases that I may need to refer to, partners' meeting notes and agendas etc. [My latest review is here. Click here to get GoodReader for iPad ($4.99): ]
- TextExpander — this is a great utility that converts small "snippets" into longer chunks of texts. For example, after a meeting with a contact I will open TextExpander and type "-exp" and this will create a pro forma email asking my secretary to fill out an expenses form, update our CRM database etc. This saves me having to type out the same thing over and over again. [Click here to get TextExpander ($4.99): ]
- Jotnot Pro — this is a great scanner. I can scan business cards, receipts etc. on the go. [Click here to get Jotnot Pro ($0.99): ]
- Meeting Planner — most of my work in international. As such I often need to be able to find a slot for a conference call between many different time zones (e.g. the UK, India and New York). This app works out the best time to schedule such a call. No more scheduling calls when it is 4am in the Big Apple! [Click here to get MtgPlanner (free): ]
- GetPacked — If I am actually travelling then I find this to be a very useful app to make sure I have packed all I need for the trip. [Click here to get GetPacked ($1.99): ]
- Reeder — my go to app for RSS. I commute to work by train. This gives me time to read. RSS feeds are great and give me a bespoke newspaper every morning of stuff that I know will be of interest to me. [Click here to get Reeder for iPad ($4.99): Click here to get Reeder for iPhone ($2.99): ]
- Daily Telegraph — for a more traditional experience, this newspaper has a decent app. [Click here to get Daily Telegraph (free): ]
- Instapaper — this app works very well for saving interesting web articles for reading later on (including offline). [Click here to get Instapaper ($3.99): ]
- Tweetbot — my app of choice for Twitter. I find this a great tool to see what my clients are up to, seeing trends in the marketplace and just having fun. I am @oxfordlawyer and am nudging up to 1000 followers. [Tweetbot is also my favorite Twitter app. Click here to get Tweetbot for iPhone ($2.99): Click here to get Tweetbot for iPad ($2.99): ]
- Buffer — a great app for scheduling tweets throughout the day rather than bombarding people in one go. [Click here to get Buffer (free): ]
- Flipboard — a beautiful way to consume your social media and other content on the iPad. This is my preferred way to look at my personal Twitter account and Facebook. [Click here to get Flipboard (free): ]
- LinkedIn — I like the iPad app and find it useful to way to stay in contact with my business community and network. [Click here to get LinkedIn (free): ]
Other great utility apps I use are 1Password (just need to remember one password!), Dropbox (great for finding my personal docs on the go), Evernote (so many different uses) and PDFpen (my go to pdf application that syncs with iCloud).
[Click here for my reviews of 1Password, PDFpen for iPad and PDFpen for iPhone and the links to get those apps. I've never formally reviewed Dropbox, but it is an essential app. Click here for Dropbox (free): And click here for Evernote (free): ]
On the way home I will check UK Train Times [$6.99:
] to see that my train is not delayed and which platform it is going from, I will update my journal in Day One [$4.99: ] and may even have a quick go on Angry Birds Star Wars! [$0.99: ]My work life is so much more productive with these great Apple products and apps. I would also recommend checking out macsparky.com, which is run by US attorney David Sparks. He has some great workflows for Apple-loving lawyers.
Best wishes from across the Pond!
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Thanks, Will, for all of your app recommendations. We use a lot of the same apps, but you also recommend quite a few that I am now interested in checking out.
If you are willing to share your experiences using an iPhone or iPad in your law practice with other iPhone J.D. readers, I'd love to hear from you! And in case you missed them, here are the reports that I previously shared from other attorneys: