In the News

Appellate practice is a big part of my law practice, which means that I often have the opportunity to present an appellate oral argument.  For many years now, I’ve found that my favorite way to prepare is to use the GoodNotes app on my iPad to write an outline, adding quotes from statutes or jurisprudence, along with my notes for answers to likely questions.  (I described some of what I do in this post from 2017.)  As the last step, I convert my notes to PDF and print them on a color laser printer.  For the last few years, I have mostly used the paper version at the podium when presenting oral arguments.  (My iPad is still nearby, in case I need to look at the briefs or the record.)  For example, I used the paper notes last week when I had my first in-person Louisiana state court appellate oral argument since the pandemic started.  But yesterday I had a U.S. Fifth Circuit oral argument, and I found it better to present from my iPad.  I was in the En Banc Courtroom in New Orleans, a beautiful courtroom with very high ceilings and lots of wood.  If you were going to invite your parents to watch you give an oral argument, you would want it to be in an impressive courtroom like this.  But it is also a darker courtroom, with dimmed lighting somewhat similar to a restaurant at night.  While there is a light at the podium that would have illuminated most of the printed-out version of my notes, I was glad to have my iPad in the courtroom with me so that I could make the quick decision to use the GoodNotes app — tapping the button at the top right to turn off edit mode so that I didn’t accidentally change anything on the screen while I was swiping through pages.  The large, backlit screen of my 12.9″ iPad Pro turned to portrait orientation was perfect for giving my oral argument, making it incredibly easy to glance at my electronic notes on the podium.  As it turned out, I didn’t actually consult my notes very often because it was pretty much non-stop questions, but when I wanted to quote something from a case or a statute, GoodNotes and the iPad made it incredibly fast and easy to find exactly what I wanted to quote to the court.  If you use an iPad to prepare for oral argument at the trial or appellate court level, I recommend that you always have both the iPad and paper notes available so that you can use whatever makes the most sense.  And so that you have a backup if your iPad isn’t working for some reason.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• In the latest episode of the Apps in Law podcast, Brett Burney talks with Tara Cheever, co-founder of LitSoftware, the maker of great iPad apps for lawyers including TrialPad and TranscriptPad.  Click here to listen to the podcast or watch the video version.
• Here an interesting intersection between smartphones and copyright law.  Zoe Schiffer and Adi Robertson of The Verge report that some police officers who are upset about bystanders taking videos of what police officers do and then posting the videos to YouTube have started to take out their own phone so that they could play a song — in one example, “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift — so that if a person’s video is posted to YouTube, YouTube would automatically take down the video as a copyright violation because of the unauthorized song playing in the video.  The article doesn’t explain whether police officers utilizing this tactic have been successful, but it is interesting that some even thought to try it.
• Apple’s built-in Notes app on the iPhone and iPad is excellent, and Apple continues to make it better.  Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac explains how Notes in iOS 15 will support tags to make it easier to sort and organize your notes.
• Apple’s Vice President of Health, Sumbul Desai, MD, is responsible for many health features in the Apple Watch and iPhone.  She is the guest on the latest episode of the Second Life podcast, a podcast spotlighting successful women who have made major career changes.  In the podcast, she shares with host Hillary Kerr a very dramatic life experience that led her to leave Disney and go into the medical field.  She also shares interesting thoughts on working from home during the pandemic, and she talks about some of the health additions coming to iOS 15, including the ability to share health data with trusted friends and family and the ability to share health data with your physician.
• When you use CarPlay in your car, your car provides the screen but the brains of the operation come from your iPhone.  Thus, when there is an update to the iOS, there is often also an update to CarPlay.  CarPlay Life reports on the new CarPlay features in iOS 15, including the ability to have Siri announce messages.  I use this feature all the time with Siri on my AirPods, and I’m a big fan.  The way it works is that when you are driving and someone sends you a text, Siri can just start speaking and let you know that so-and-so sent you a text saying such-and-such.  You can turn off the feature whenever you don’t want it, but since I typically am by myself when I am driving, I love that I will no longer have to take some action when a new text arrives to hear who it is from and what they want to say.
• Meredith TerHaar of ABC13 news in Michigan shares the story of Diane Feenstra.  Her husband gave her an Apple Watch, and she noticed one day on her watch that her heart rate was 169 beats per minute, even though she had not been doing anything strenuous.  She had noticed some other minor symptoms, such as indigestion and pain in her shoulder, but didn’t think much of them.  But once she saw her elevated heart rate, she went to the hospital and learned that she had experienced a heart attack because of a blockage in the “Widow maker artery.”  She had a stent procedure, she is now doing better, and she credits the Apple Watch for helping her to avoid a second heart attack that would have likely been fatal.  After typing those sentences, I decided to use my own Apple Watch to check my heart rate, and I see that I have 63 BPM.  Whew.
• And finally, if you have the new 2021 version of the iPad Pro 12.9″ or a new iPhone that can do a great job displaying HDR content — or if you are looking for something impressive to watch on an HDR television — here are two video recommendations.  You can watch these videos on any device, but on a device that does a good job displaying HDR, they look outstanding.  First, here is an impressive video from Sony showing glass blowing.  Second, here is an amazing video from LG in which musicians play Jazz and colors pop around them.  I’ve embedded below the LG video: