Attorneys frequently have to look up contact information for courts, whether it be to call a judge's chambers, send an email to the court with a draft of a proposed order, or ask a question of a clerk of court. By this point I presume that all of this information is available on court websites, but if you are out of the office using your iPhone that means that you still need to search for the website and find the part of the website with contact information — and many of these pages are not optimized for the iPhone's screen so you may have to squint. An easier solution is to use the Court Directory app from Bloomberg BNA. This app contains detailed contact information for judges, clerks of course, and other courthouse personnel for federal and state courts. The app doesn't have contact information on every single judge, but it is darn close. Bloomberg BNA says that the 2013 edition contains listings for 2,133 state courts, 216 federal courts, 16,025 judges and 5,319 clerks and court administrators in the 50 states, D.C., U.S. territories, and more. In Louisiana, for example, I see all of the courts in which I practice, but I don't see some courts of limited jurisdiction such as Justice of the Peace courts or traffic courts.
The app is not fancy, but it is quick and easy to use. By default, when you launch the app it displays the state court information for the state where you are currently located, but you can change the home page to another jurisdiction of you prefer. For states, the app divides up courts by level. So here in Louisiana, the "1st Court Level" is our Supreme Court, the "2nd Court Level" is our five courts of appeal, and "3rd Court Level" is our trial courts.
Tap on a court to see more information such as the list of judges. There is typically also an entry called "Geographic Jurisdiction" that will give you a list of each county (or "parish" for Louisiana) covered by that court. Tap on a judge (or clerk etc.) to see the contact information. The information included varies from state to state but always includes a phone number and typically includes other information such as the public email address, address, fax number, etc. You can tap on an address to see it on a map, and you can tap on a phone number to dial it.
The app lets you designate any court as a "favorite" to make it easier to access later. The app also includes a simple search feature.
Bloomberg BNA tells me that the app will be updated over the next few months to add even more information including social media links for some judges who use services like Facebook or Twitter. It will be interesting to see that added, especially considering that the use of social media by judges is such a hot topic of legal ethics right now.
The information provided in this app is information that you could find elsewhere, but it is very handy to have it all contained in one place. Buying this app saves you from having to create (and update) contact entries in your address book for every single court that you might want to contact, not to mention the time that you would have to take to look up the information. For attorneys who practice before many different courts, especially those who practice in many different jurisdictions, this is a very convenient app to have on your iPhone. This is a universal app so it works on the iPad too, which is nice, but for me this app has been most useful on my iPhone.
Click here to get Court Directory from Bloomberg BNA ($9.99):
