Jeff Richardson

I spent the last few days in Chicago at the 2013 installment of ABA TECHSHOW.  In just about every way, I considered it to be the best TECHSHOW ever, although there are a few things that I hope are done differently next year.

The conference sessions were, as always, excellent, with a full day devoted to Tablets and Smartphones.  As the title suggests, this track was platform-agnostic.  For some topics, that made sense.  For example, I gave a presentation on tablet and smartphone security with Pittsburgh attorney David Ries and Illinois attorney Aaron Brooks, and I thought it was quite helpful to compare and contrast security options on the different smartphones.  On the other hand, on Friday morning there was a session presenting the top apps for four different platforms:  iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows 8 tablets.  Each presenter was excellent, but it would have been far more useful to have different sessions devoted to different platforms.  iPhone and iPad users didn’t gain much learning how Android users are trying to work around the lack of legal-specific software for that platform.  I really hope that next year the ABA brings back the 60 iOS Apps in 60 Minutes session that has been so popular in the past.  But notwithstanding my constructive criticisms, the iOS content at this year’s TECHSHOW was better than ever before, which is a big part of the reason that I thought TECHSHOW overall was better than ever this year.

Another reason:  the keynote speaker.  David Pogue of the New York Times was even more entertaining than I thought he would be, and I had high expectations.  I didn’t realize that his grandfather, Welch Pogue, founded a D.C. firm that merged with Jones Day in 1967 (hence the “Pogue” in “Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue”) and his father, Dick Pogue, was the managing partner of Jones Day for many years.  (Jones Day grew from 335 to 1,250 lawyers under his tenure.)  So while Pogue is not an attorney and did not speak much about the law, he definitely has an understanding of what it means to be an attorney.  Pogue talked about the future of technology, but was as much a comedian as a visionary.  He had the audience in stitches for almost an hour, then ended up by performing some funny songs.

After his amazing talk, he was nice enough to chat with many of us and take lots of pictures, such as this next one with me.  I laughed when I saw Ed Walters of Fastcase tweet that upon posing for a picture with Pogue and Kevin O’Keefe, he felt like his Twitter feed had “materialized out of thin air.”

The exhibit hall of TECHSHOW was full of activity every time I visited it.  And it seemed like half of the vendors were showing off something on the iPad.  It was just three years ago that all of us at TECHSHOW were wondering about what the upcoming iPad might mean for lawyers, and it is amazing how quickly this technology has taken hold.  I’ll be discussing some of what I saw in upcoming posts.

As always, one of the best parts of TECHSHOW was talking with other attorneys about technology.  I always learn so much when I hear what others are doing with their iPhone and iPads.  I also enjoyed talking with Jeff Taylor of The Droid Lawyer.  Sam Glover of Lawyerist.com apparently found it amusing when he saw us talking, leading him to tweet about competing smartphone ecosystems, but I always enjoy hearing what Taylor is doing with his Android phone and tablet because it often gives me idea for the iPhone and iPad.  Sam was nice enough to take this picture of the Jeff and Jeff of the iPhone and Android worlds with my iPhone.

I want to especially thank the very enthusiastic crowd for the iOS in Action session that Ben Stevens
(of The Mac Lawyer) and I presented on Saturday morning.  I know that many people had left TECHSHOW by then, but we still had a packed room and some great questions both during and after the presentation.  For those of you who didn’t get a chance to talk to me or Ben, you can always freel free to send me an email.

Finally, I had a fabulous time at the Taste of Techshow dinner that I co-hosted on Thursday night.  It’s a shame that only 12 people could attend, but we had an amazing group with lots of lively and fun conversation.  Thanks to everyone who attended:  Scott Norby of Thomson Reuters ProLaw (which sponsored the dinner), Philippe Doyle Gray (a barrister in Sydney, Australia and frequent iPhone J.D. commenter who literally traveled across the world to join us), Ian O’Flaherty and Tara Cheever of Lit Software in Miami (makers of TrialPad and TranscriptPad), South Carolina attorney Bill Latham of The Hytech Lawyer, San Antonio attorney and mediator Don Philbin (creator of the Picture it Settled app), North Carolina attorney Leigh Anne Miller, Texas attorney Karl Seebach (who recently started eDepo, a service that delivers video transcripts to an iPad), North Carolina legal technology consultant Pegeen Turner of Turner IT Solutions, Illinois law student Noelia Rodríguez-Quiñones and of course my co-host, Dallas attorney Tom Mighell.

I’m already looking forward to the next ABA TECHSHOW, in Chicago on March 26-29, 2014.

I’ve heard from many iPhone J.D. readers who will be in Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW 2013 starting tonight.  This will be my fifth TECHSHOW, and it is always a great opportunity to
learn about technology from formal CLE sessions, vendors showing off
cutting edge legal technology and (best of all) other attorneys who enjoy
using tech.  The attention to mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad at TECHSHOW has steadily increased every year that I’ve attended, both in terms of the number of CLE sessions devoted to the topic and the number of vendors showing off mobile software and accessories.  And considering that the cover article on this month’s ABA Journal is The Mobile Lawyer, I have no doubt that iPhones and iPads will be central topics throughout TECHSHOW this year.

If you are reading this, I hope to see you there.  Here is where you are likely to find me:

Wednesday, April 3

6:00 – 8:00 pm:  Cocktails and Comedy.  (Continental A/B)  The event is hosted by Rocket Lawyer. If you see me, please say hello.  I look like this.

8:00 – 10:00 pm: LexThink.1.  A fast-paced Ignite-style event.

Thursday, April 4

I’ll be checking out the over 100 companies on the Exhibit Floor and attending various sessions throughout the day, so you might bump into me just about anywhere.  My schedule includes:

10:00 – Noon:  I’ll be working at the Concierge Desk.  If prior
years are any indication, that means that I’ll spend a little time
helping people find things at the conference, but most of my time will
be devoted to talking about iPhones and iPads with anyone who stops by
to chat.  It’s usually the most social spot at the conference.

4:00 – 5:00 pm:  The Tablet Litigator.  (Northwest 3)  San Antonio attorney Mark Unger and attorney Paul Unger of the Affinity Consulting Group, will be talking about using an iPad in trial.

5:30 – 7:00 pm:  Welcome Reception.  (EXPO Hall)  A chance to socialize with attendees and vendors.

7:30 pm – ?:  Taste of Techshow.  Dallas attorney Tom Mighell, author of many books on using an iPad in your law practice, and I are hosting a dinner for iPhone / iPad users at Wildfire restaurant.  Thomson Reuters is sponsoring our dinner, and we are sure to have a great time.  The dinner has been sold out for a while now, but there is often a waiting list at the Concierge Desk, or you can sign up for one of the many other Taste of Techshow dinners, four of which also have an iPhone/iPad focus.

Friday, April 5

I’ll be in room Northwest 5 most of the day because that is the location of the Tablets and Smartphone track, where I will be speaking in the afternoon.

8:00 – 9:00 am:  Tablet Wars 2013.  Hopefully Tom Mighell will get some sleep after our dinner on Thursday night, because bright and early Friday morning, he is teaming up with Jeff Taylor of The Droid Lawyer to compare and contrast iPads with Android tablets.

10:00 – 11:00 am:  The 4×4 Challenge: Top Apps for Every Platform.  Dan Pinnington, Ben Schorr, Jeff Taylor and Mark Unger will discuss the top apps for iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry.  Although I’ll attend this session, it will be somewhat in protest; I liked it better when we had an entire hour devoted to just iOS apps, and it’s a shame that there is no 60 Apps in 60 Minutes session this year.  Hopefully it will come back next year.

12:45 pm – 1:45 pm:  Keynote speaker David Pogue of the New York Times will discuss “Disruptive Tech:  What’s Now, What’s Coming, and How It Will Change Everything.”  Pogue is a funny and intelligent speaker, and I’m thrilled to see that he will be at TECHSHOW.

2:30 – 3:30 pm:  Mobile Collaboration.  Michigan attorney Patrick Crowley and St. Louis attorney Dennis Kennedy will discuss using mobile devices to share documents and ideas.

3:45 – 4:45 pm:  Batten Down the Hatches: Mobile Security for Lawyers.  I’ll be co-presenting this session along with Pittsburgh attorney David Ries and Illinois attorney Aaron Brooks.  We’ll give you lots of tips for maintaining the confidentiality of documents and other data on your iPhone and iPad.

Finally, I haven’t seen an official announcement yet [UPDATE: confirmed], but traditionally Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog and the ABA Journal sponsor Beer for Bloggers at 5:30 at Hilton Chicago’s Lakeside Green Lounge.  This event is a happy hour with free drinks for all TECHSHOW attendees, even if you don’t have a blog.

Saturday, April 6

9:45 – 10:45 am:  iOS in Action.  South Carolina attorney Ben Stevens
(of The Mac Lawyer) and I will present this session devoted to getting the most
out of an iPhone and iPad in your law practice.  Stevens and I gave a similar presentation focused on the iPhone back in 2010, and a lot has changed in the world of iOS since then.

Finally, if this will be your first TECHSHOW, or if you just want a refresher, New York attorney Niki Black has a great All You Need to Know post with details for preparing for, and getting the most out of, ABA TECHSHOW.

See you in the Windy City!

Citrix provides remote access solutions for more than 260,000 organizations and over 100 million users around the world.  Many law firms (mine included) use Citrix, and Citrix provides users with a free Citrix Receiver app that they can access their work environment even when they are out of the office.  I see that I’ve never posted a formal review of the Citrix app, but I use it somewhat frequently, and it works well for those times when I need remote access to software that only works on Windows or that requires you to be within the work environment.  I like using the virtual mouse mode in the iPad app that makes it easy to get the cursor exactly where you need it, making it easier to tap small buttons.

With so many Citrix users, Citrix is able to compile some statistics on who uses what platforms in which industries.  Citrix just released its Enterprise Mobility Cloud Report for Q4 2012, which you can download here (PDF format).  Not every law firm uses Citrix, of course, and I suspect that there are more Citrix users in medium size to large law firms than smaller law firms.  Thus, it would be a mistake to extrapolate any data from Citrix to all lawyers.  Nevertheless, Citrix is quite popular, so the statistics do tell you something.

So what are the statistics?  In some industries, such as transportation and utilities, Android is currently the preferred platform.  But in the legal (and insurance) industries, the iOS platform is by far the preferred platform.  Specifically, about 98% of Citrix mobile users at law firms are using iOS.  Here is a chart from the report (click to enlarge):

To be honest, I was surprised that the number was that high.  98% for the legal services industry is a pretty overwhelming statistic.  However, the Citrix numbers are consistent with what we see from other surveys and estimates — namely, that the iPad is by far the tablet device of choice for lawyers.

Thank you to Connected Data, creator of the Transporter, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. again this month.  I described the basic function of the Transporter last month, and because Connected Data sent me a free review unit soon after the product was first released, I’ve now had lots of time to use the product for real-world tasks.  The Transporter works very well, and is a perfect answer to the problem that so many attorneys face:  you want the convenience of cloud storage so that you have access to your files everywhere, but you are concerned about the security implications of trusting your confidential documents to a third party.  With a Transporter, you own the hard drive that is connected to the Internet, and you control who (if anyone) besides yourself gets access to the documents.  And because you can use standard 2.5″ SATA hard drives in the Transporter and there are no monthly service fees, using a Transporter is a lot cheaper than cloud storage companies.

I noted last month that the one missing piece was an iPhone/iPad app.  That is now solved.  Just over a week ago, Apple approved the Transporter app so you can now get it (for free) from the App Store.  In fact, if you have ever used the Dropbox app. you’ll feel right at home using the Transporter app. 

You need an Internet connect to use the app.  When you start the app, it displays a list of your folders.  Note that this includes both the folders that you created on your own Transporter, plus any folders that you were given access to by another Transporter user.  Just tap on a folder name to view its contents.  Files that you have not yet downloaded are in grey.  Files that have been downloaded to the app are in black.

 

Once a file has been downloaded, you can view it.  The app uses the normal iOS app viewers, so you can view Word files, PDF files, etc.  Or better yet, you can use the icon at the top right to send the file to another app, such as your favorite app for viewing and annotating PDF files, your favorite app for viewing and/or modifying Word documents, etc.

This is a universal app so it works on the iPad as well.  In the iPad version, you see a list of files on the left and the file itself is shown on the right.  If you tap the arrow at the top of the file itself, the list on the left collapses so you can use the full width of the iPad to view the document.  On both the iPhone and iPad, you can turn your device to use the app and view documents in either portrait or landscape mode.

Not only can you use this app to send a file from your Transporter to another app on your iPhone or iPad, you can also send files from other apps to the Transporter app.  When you do so, the Transporter app lets you change the file name (if you want to) and choose a folder, and then upload the file to your Transporter.  You then have a secure copy of the file waiting for you on your computer. 

Having an iOS app makes the Transporter incredibly useful.  I can now easily access my confidential files even when I am out of the office.

Beyond using the iOS app, I’ve also found the Transporter to work well with multiple computers.  In the past when I was working on a motion or a brief, I would often keep the active version of the document on the desktop of my Windows computer at work, and then when I wanted to work on the document at night using the Mac at my house, I’d have to connect to my work computer and email the file to myself, which can sometimes lead to confusion over which version of the document is current.  With the Transporter, I just create a folder for my matter, store my active document in that folder, and work from that document at work.  When I get home, everything in that folder is already synced to my home computer so I can just open the document and start working again.  When I return to the office the next day, the latest version of the document is there waiting for me.  And all the while, the document has lived only on my computers and the Transporter that is located in my own house — not some third party service over which I have no control — so I have no concerns about keeping the document confidential.

I’m pleased to have Connected Data and the Transporter as a sponsor of iPhone J.D. again this month, and I encourage you to check it out if you like the idea of keeping your documents secure while also having access to them wherever you are.

Click here to get Transporter from Connected Data ($199 – $399).

Click here to get Transporter from Amazon ($299 for 1TB or $399 for 2TB).

Click here for the Connected Data Transporter app (free): 

The cover story on the April, 2013 issue of the ABA Journal is The Mobile Lawyer by New York journalist Joe Dysart.  The article discusses how smartphones and tablets are changing the legal practice, and I was pleased to provide Dysart some information for the article.  The magazine includes a section describing top iOS apps (my picks) and Android apps (Jeff Taylor‘s picks), which you can see online too.  Note that I gave Dysart my list of apps way back in November of 2012.  (The lead time for magazine articles is quite long.)  I still like and use all of those apps, but today I probably would have mentioned Apple’s Pages app in addition to Documents to Go.  And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• Dallas attorney Tom Mighell, author of several other books for lawyers using iPads (like this one) wrote a new book called iPad in One Hour for Litigators full of tips for using an iPad in a courtroom.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I look forward to learning more about it when I see Tom at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago in a few days.
• Over four years ago, I linked to a funny iPhone-related video by D.C. attorney Tom Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSblog.  I use SCOTUSblog in my practice when I have cases go up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it is my favorite source for Supreme Court information when there are hot cases before the Court — which obviously includes this past week, when SCOTUSblog has had fantastic coverage of the two same-sex marriage cases.  This week, SCOTUSblog received a Peabody Award, and is the first blog to ever get the recognition.  What a well-deserved honor.  Congrats to Goldstein and the rest of the crew.
• Alan Cohen of Law Technology News asks Is the Apple iPad Mini Ready for Business?  Spoiler alert:  YES.
• Jim Calloway of the Oklahoma Bar Association wrote ar article for the Oklahoma Bar Journal (available here in PDF format) about using an iPad in your law practice.
• New York attorney Niki Black discusses how lawyers use mobile devices to manage their law practices and put together an infographic to display the statistics.
• During Hurricane Katrina, my law firm
  
  and a few others in New Orleans used satellite phones to communicate
  
  when the cell towers were not working or overloaded.  I see that Thuraya
  
  now sells the SatSleve,
  
  a device that fits around an iPhone to turn it into a satellite phone. 
  
  If you travel to remote locations, I could see it being quite useful.
• ExhibitView, an app that you can use to present evidence at trial or in a meeting, was recently updated to version 4.0.  New features include better callout graphics and the ability to maintain documents in full size even while they are being projected.  Click here for ExhibitView ($49.99): 
• Caitlin Moon of Litig8r Tech discusses MobiLit for iPad, another app that can be used to display documents.
• This week, T-Mobile announced that it is (finally) about to start selling the iPhone, so you can now get the iPhone from all of the major U.S. carriers.  T-Mobile has an interesting approach to the iPhone 5.  You pay $99 up front, then pay $20 a month for 24 months, but you have no contract so you can cancel at any time if you pay off the phone.  I’ve seen some other folks do the math (such as Steve Kovach of Business Insider) and conclude that because of T-Mobile cheaper monthly plans, this works out to be the overall cheapest way to get an iPhone 5.  T-Mobile 4G LTE is new so it is available in far fewer markets than Verizon or AT&T, but T-Mobile does have a 3G network that is up to twice as fast as the one that AT&T has (in fact, T-Mobile calls its faster 3G “4G,” a tactic that AT&T also uses, but in my mind you need to be LTE to be “real” 4G), and the iPhone 5 will be modified to take advantage of T-Mobile’s faster 3G network.  (Dan Moren of Macworld has the details on this.)  Depending upon where you live, T-Mobile might be the best carrier, and for many people they are the cheapest carrier, so I’m glad to see that they will start selling the iPhone this month.
• Brian Stelter of the New York Times writes about Nick D’Aloisio, a British teenager who write a news app called Summly when he was 15 years old and now, two years later, sold it to Yahoo! for tens of millions of dollars.  Gulp.
• If you are thinking about getting one of those tiny pico projectors, perhaps to display a presentation from your iPhone or iPad, Geoff Morrison of The Wirecutter picks the best model.
• And finally, a British beer company, Somersby Cider, created a funny commercial that parodies an Apple Store opening.  Worth watching:

There are lots of different types of lawyers, but all of us do one basic thing: help clients solve problems.  Back in 2011, Portland attorneys Jamie Daigle of Stewart, Sokol & Gray and solo attorney Bryan Churchill recognized the value of an iPad in the practice of law, but thought that they could solve some of the problems with holding and displaying an iPad.  They wanted a way to hold the iPad with one hand without obscuring the screen to make it easier to read documents and show them off to others.  They also wanted a way to prop up the iPad at different angles.  Working with some basic materials and a lot of tape, they come up with a basic idea for an iPad case that would solve these problems.  They took their idea to Fuse, a design shop in Portland, which helped the attorneys turn their basic idea into a product that could be manufactured.  To raise funds to make the product, they first turned to Kickstarter, but never achieved their funding goal of $75,000.  So instead, they decided to use their own funds to make it.  By the end of 2012, they were selling units from the Clutch for iPad website and shipping units to customers.

The attorneys behind the Clutch for iPad sent me a free review unit last month and I’ve been trying it out with my third generation iPad.  (The Clutch does not fit the original iPad, but it works with the iPad 2, the third generation iPad and the current fourth generation iPad.)  It is an interesting product that I think will appeal to a lot of attorneys and other professionals.

Mechanics

Attaching the Clutch for iPad is simple.  There are two parts.  One part is a rubberized case.  It just takes a few seconds to stretch the edges of the case and wrap it around the four sides of the iPad.  The other part is the handle.

Once your iPad is in the case, you attach the handle to the case.  There are five different locations — one in the center, and one at each of the four sides.  To attach the handle you simply snap it in.  To remove the handle, you press the red release button.  When the handle is in the center location, it can spin 360°.  On the four edges, it snaps into only one position.

Stand

The Clutch is a versatile iPad stand because it can be placed at so many different angles.  The website shows these five positions which are useful for everything from typing to FaceTime video chats to watching movies:

Those are all great, but when I am using my iPad at my desk, my favorite position is this one.  The angle at which I took the photograph might make this look unsteady, but in reality this is a stable position, even when you tap and swipe your finger on the screen:

Handle

Another feature of the Clutch for iPad is that it provides you with a handle on the back of your iPad.  This lets you hold the iPad with just one hand.  It is also nice if you are showing off your iPad screen to someone else because your hands are not covering the edges of the iPad; you can just have one hand behind the iPad and use your other hand to point and tap.

As a handle, the Clutch for iPad works fine, but frankly I wish it worked a little better.  The size is nice and it is comfortable in your hand.  However, I wish that the handle had more friction so that minimal squeezing was necessary.  In my opinion, the FreeOneHand, which I reviewed a year ago, works better as a handle because you can place your fingers into the holes and the device rests in your hand without you having to exert any energy.  I often read long documents, such as depositions or long briefs, on my iPad.  I love the idea of holding it in one hand, but my hand got tired more quickly using the Clutch for iPad than using the FreeOneHand.  Having said that, the Clutch for iPad is definitely better than holding just the iPad with one or two hands for a long period of time.

For a second opinion, Portland attorney Josh Barrett — who ran the great, gone-but-not-forgotten site TabletLegal — tried a prototype in late 2011 and said that he found it “comfortable to hold and use” and thought that the “round handle takes little effort to hold and was a natural fit in my hand.”

Storage

The final feature of the Clutch for iPad is that the handle is hollow.  Thus, you can use it for storage.  You can easily fit earbuds and a USB to iPad cord in it, although the iPad’s power’s supply is too large to fit.  (You can fit the smaller power supply that comes with an iPhone, but it will not charge the iPad as quickly.)  The storage compartment is a nice extra feature, and shows that a lot of attention to detail went into this product.

Videos

If you want to see the Clutch for iPad in action, James Daigle created a few videos that are up on YouTube including one showing you how to assemble and use the Clutch for iPad, one showing the different positions of the handle and one in which Daigle and Churchill themselves explain the key features.  But I especially like these two videos created by using the fun movie trailer feature of iMovie in which a girl (I’m guessing Daigle’s daughter) shows off the Clutch for iPad.

Conclusion

I like the Clutch for iPad.  It is a fantastic stand and can hold my iPad in just about any position I could possibly want when my iPad is at my desk.  It works fine as a handle, although as noted above, it is not the best iPad handle I’ve tried.  And the storage compartment is a nice touch.  Perhaps most of all, I’m impressed that Bryan Churchill and Jamie Daigle were smart enough to recognize a need, creative enough to develop a solution and persistent enough to see the product through to completion.  I suspect that these qualities make them fine lawyers as well.

Click here to get the Clutch for iPad ($59.95)

Back on February 20, 2013, Apple released iOS 6.1.2, a minor update for the iPhone and iPad that, somewhat surprisingly, did not fix a previously-reported bug that someone could use to partially bypass a lock screen.  This week, Apple released iOS 6.1.3, which Lex Friedman of Macworld notes fixes that bug.  Unfortunately, Nick Arnott of iMore reports that there is now another exploit that can be used to bypass the lock screen, even in 6.1.3.  The security folks at Apple must sometimes feel like they are playing Wach-a-Mole.  And now, the rest of the news of note from this past week:

• California attorney Scott Grossberg offers advice for attaching a document when you are replying to an email.  iOS doesn’t make this task easy, but Grossberg explains the workarounds.
• Stephen Bour of Indiana Lawyer explains how to use the app Air Display to use your iPad as a second screen for your PC.  (via Mark Phillipoff)
• Two items of interest from California attorney David “MacSparky” Sparks.  First, Sparks has a new ebook available for purchase in the iBookStore called
  
  Markdown, a way to write using plain text while still adding
  
  formatting.  I know that there are attorneys who write the first draft
  
  of all of their briefs in Markdown.  I must admit that I don’t know much
  
  about markdown, so I’ll have to check out his book to learn more.  Click here for more details.  I’m a big fan of his last ebook called Paperless, a great resource for lawyers.
• Second, Sparks has an article in Macworld in which he reviews the best apps for making lists.
• Similarly, over at Lawyerist, New York attorney Nicole Black explains why Any.DO is her favorite app for making lists
• Missouri attorney Todd Hendrickson reviews JuryPad, an app that you can use during voir dire, in this article for Lawyerist.
• John Edwards of Law Technology News offers tips for traveling with technology.
• In another move aimed at increase security, yesterday Apple unveiled two-step verification for Apple ID and iCloud accounts.  Two-step verification combines (1) what you know (a password) and (2) what you have (in this case, a unique number displayed on your iPhone or other device).  Lex Friedman of Macworld has the details.
• Connected Data, a sponsor of iPhone J.D. this month, now has an iPhone and iPad app so that you can securely access the files that you stored on the devices.  If you own a Transporter, you can get the free app here: 
• Now through March 27, you can get 20% off of the dockBoss Air, a product I reviewed in January that turns a 30-pin speaker into a Bluetooth speaker.  Use code AIRELESS20 at checkout.
• I rarely talk about Apple patents because few of them make their way into products, but this one is interesting:  methods to protect a dropped iPhone during a fall to lessen the damage.  For example, the patent covers a rotational mechanism to change the orientation of a falling iPhone. Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch has the basic story, and Patently Apple has more details.
• A company called Business Development, Inc. asked me to announce that they now have a iPhone/iPad app called Rainmaker Coach to help lawyers gets clients.  The app is free, but I see that there is a $99 in-app purchase for a one-year subscription.  Click here for more information.
• Electronista reports that the Department of Defense plans to purchase over 650,000 iPads, iPhones and iPod touches.
• Sharon Zardetto of Macworld has tips for using autocorrect on an iPhone or iPad.
• Dan Frakes of Macworld has a great buying guide for iPad keyboards.  I like the Apple Wireless Keyboard myself, but Frakes discusses all of your options.
• John Moltz of It’s a Very Nice Web Site offers an interesting and funny perspective on in-app purchase controls so that your kids don’t spend thousands of your dollars when they use your iPad.
• Many people who use an iPhone on AT&T opt for the $30/month data plan which gives you 3GB of data.  But if you need a lot of data — and I mean a LOT of data — Chris Welch of The Verge reports that AT&T is introducing a 30GB plan for $300, a 40GB plan for $400 and a 50GB plan for $500 a month.  So if you really feel the need to stream Netflix movies 24/7 in the middle of a park with no WiFi, you’re all set.
• And finally, every year, creative law students produce fun law revue music videos, and some of them are quite good.  This year, Andy Loud, a 2L at West Virginia University Law School, created a funny song and video about the drudgery of law school.  It is done to the tune of Maroon 5’s Payphone and the lyrics are clever.  Candace Nelson of the Charleston Daily Mail talked to Loud about the making of the video.  You can watch it here:

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 Jeff Forbes, an attorney in the Cincinnati office of Wood & Lamping LLP.  Jeff represents local governments on issues as varied as zoning, land use, labor and
employment, litigation and appeals.  He serves as the appointed law director for a number of cities and villages around
the Greater Cincinnati area. 

Jeff recently started a blog called Big City Small Town Law where he talks about both his law practice and technology.  One of his recent posts was about using an iPad in his law practice, and he was kind enough to expand upon that post for iPhone J.D. readers.  Here is what he had to say:

If you’re like me, you’ve been attending city council meetings multiple
nights every month, sometimes three nights a week, for a lot of years.
(OK — you’re probably not like me, but play along.) You lug a big
accordion file with you to every meeting — a different one for each
city or village you represent. Then you lug it back to the office the
next morning with even more paper.

That file probably has a legal pad so you can take notes of the meeting
and record newly assigned projects. You’re probably carrying copies of
all the ordinances and resolutions being considered that night (and
maybe copies of old ones so you can keep track of the current state of
the local law). It might have a copy or two of the city charter, a
zoning code, a contact list, a thoroughfare plan, an audit report, an
invitation to a ribbon cutting ceremony, and a draft of a silly letter
where you’re thinking about asking for an increase in your hourly rate. I
had all of that and more. Until I got an iPad.

My kids had been begging me to get an iPad. (Not really — I wanted one
for myself, but it sounds better to say that the kids nagged me until I
broke down and bought one.) In fact, it was my Father’s Day gift to
myself. I thought it would end up being a pretty cool toy for me, and if I
could figure out a way to use it for work, that would just be icing on
the cake.

Well, it’s turned into a whole lot of icing. I have since turned that
iPad over to the kids and upgraded to a 32GB fourth generation model
with 4G LTE. All the ordinances, charters, letters, and zoning codes
have now been scanned into digital format and loaded on the iPad.
Everything in that giant paper file has been replaced with the iPad,
including the legal pad itself. In fact, that’s all I carry to meetings
anymore. I take handwritten notes, my calendar is always with me to
schedule follow up meetings, and all of my usual online resources are
now available to me with just a touch. Now I wonder how I ever worked
without it.

I have experimented with a ton of apps, and I’m still fine tuning a more
efficient and productive workflow. Already, I have identified a few absolutely critical apps for my needs.
First, representing a number of local government agencies generates a
high volume of projects, both big and small. I absolutely love OmniFocus
for task and project management. I’m able to create separate project
folders for each municipality that I represent and set location-based
contexts that allow me to see what work is available depending on where I
might find myself. It also syncs across to my iPhone.

Second, my partners and clients are probably tired of hearing me talk
about Notability. This app has almost completely replaced my paper file
folders for city council meetings. I can carry every document I need,
mark up PDFs, and take handwritten notes. I know there are dozens of
note taking apps, but Notability is my go-to.

Finally, although there is nothing wrong with the built in calendar app,
I have been using Week Calendar HD, which recently was re-released.
The fact that I can set auto-color coding based on textual input is
awesome. For example, anything that has my wife’s name in the event title
automatically appears purple. It also syncs to my iPhone.

I continue to test out new apps and tweak my workflow all the time. And the more I read your site, the more ideas I have!

Representing local governments is about as far from my own law practice as you get, and Jeff Forbes is using different apps that I am.  And yet we are both using our iPads to do the same thing — store lots of documents and take notes.  As Jeff says, it is wonderful to be able to carry just an iPad to meetings without worrying about lugging around large binders, folders, legal pads, etc. 

Thanks for sharing, Jeff, and good luck with your new blog!

If you are willing to share your own 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:

• William Axtell:  2/19/13
• Zane Cagle:  1/1/12
• Megan Erickson:  5/11/11
• Tom Freeland:  7/13/10
• Cliff Maier:  12/22/08
• Lindsay Rakers:  12/18/12
• Alfred Saikali:  5/4/11
• Mike Schneider:  4/28/09
• Clark Stewart:  7/22/10

You can use your iPhone to keep track of birthdays.  (And your iPad too, but I’ll just refer to the iPhone in this post for ease of reference.)  This is obviously nice for friends and family, but it is also useful to remember that a client or colleague has a birthday coming up.  Sending a quick email to say happy birthday and ask what is new is a nice way to stay in touch with former clients and others who you haven’t seen in a while.  The iPhone stores birthdays in a special field in the Contacts app that you might not even know is there, and displays birthdays in the Calendar app.  Here are tips for handling birthdays.

First, you need to add the birthday date.  For an existing contact entry in your Contacts app tap the Edit button at the top right corner.  If you are creating a new contact, then you are already in edit mode.  Scroll down to the bottom to find a button called “add field” with a green plus next to it.  Tap that button and you will see a list of additional fields; scroll down until you see Birthday and tap that one.

 

You will now see a date wheel.  Tap the month, day and year for the birthday.  If you don’t know the year, just below the current year you will see a “—-” that you can select to indicate that you only know the month and day.

 

That’s it.  Now you have a birthday associated with that contact, and you’ll see the birthday whenever you view the contact on your iPhone.  That’s nice, but what is really helpful is that this field also used by the Calendar app.

To see birthdays in the Calendar app you need to enable that calendar.  Tap the “Calendars” button at the top left corner of the screen to select the Birthdays calendar in addition to your normal calendar.

 

Now, when you are looking at calendar entries on the iPhone, you will see birthdays listed along with other events.  If you just want to browse upcoming birthdays, go back to the list of Calendars and only select the Birthdays calendar.

You can decide whether you want to always display the Birthdays calendar in addition to your regular calendar or if you only want to display birthdays when you manually turn that calendar on.  The one small downside of having multiple calendars displayed at the same time is that the iPhone places a dot to the left of each entry to indicate, by color, which calendar it comes from.  This is helpful, but it leaves a little less space to display the text in your calendar entries … enough that you typically cannot see one letter in the event.  For example, in the next two images, you can see what when I only have one calendar displayed I can see the “&” in my entry on March 24 and the “t” in the word “report” on March 25, but with the dots displayed I don’t see those characters.  You can decide how important it is to you to see only about 20 characters instead of about 21 characters in an entry.  If that’s not a big deal to you, then you might as well keep both calendars turned on all the time.  I believe that the Calendar app on the iPad always displays the dot no matter how many calendars you have turned on, so this is just a consideration for the iPhone.

 

I’ve talked about using the built-in Calendar app, but I rarely use that app nowadays.  I prefer the amazing $4.99 Fantastical app that I reviewed late last year.  I can’t even count all of the reasons that app is worth the $5, but one small reason is the way that it handles birthdays.  Instead of just telling you that it is someone’s birthday, Fantastical also tells you how old they will be.  This feature seems so obvious and useful that I don’t know why the built-in Calendar app doesn’t include it too.

If you use a Mac, the Mac’s built-in Calendar program syncs with the Birthdays calendar on your iPhone, and even shows you the person’s age. 

If you use a PC and you use Microsoft Exchange / Outlook, the birthday information from your iPhone/iPad will sync to the contact on your PC, but it will not also automatically show up in the Outlook calendar.  You need to manually use your PC to add a birthday to an Outlook contact in the Details tab of a contact (or if there is already a birthday, re-save it) to tell Outlook to create a separate calendar event with the birthday.  Unlike the iPhone and Mac, in Outlook the birthday event in the calendar is not linked to the contact; you can even delete the event from your Outlook calendar but it will not delete the birthday date saved in the contact.  Perhaps at some point in the future, Microsoft will fix this issue with recognizing the birthday field when a contact is imported, but for now, when you add a birthday on your iPhone/iPad you will not see the birthday in the Outlook calendar on the PC.

Thousands of people read iPhone J.D. every day using an RSS reader, most of whom use Google Reader.  Perhaps you are doing so right now.  I also use Google Reader to read various law and iPhone website to find news that makes its way into this Friday In the news post.  This week, Google announced that it is ending the service on July 1.  I’m sure that several good alternatives will pop-up over the next few months, but this will change the way that I and many others read posts on the Internet.  Whenever I find a replacement that works for me, I’ll let you know.  And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• Utah attorney Pete Summerill reviews JuryPad and JuryStar, two iPad apps that you can use in voir dire to help pick a jury, on his MacLitigator website.  I have yet to use an app like this in trial, which is why I have never posted a review of one of these apps, and after reading Summerill’s reviews I’m still not sure that I’m ready to use one of these apps in court.
• Massachusetts lawyer Robert Ambrogi discusses an iPhone app called iWrite Legal that provides legal writing tips.
• If you use (or are considering using) Orion for your law practice management, the company just released the iOrion app, which you can use to access and enter client contact/matter data, billable time, and expenses.  Click here to download the brochure (a PDF file) with details on the app.
• Jennifer Smith of the Wall Street Journal discusses several apps of interest to people who need legal services including Viewabill, an app that lets clients track how much their lawyers are charging them in real time.
• Joseph Keller of iMore reports that CBS has followed in the footsteps of NBC, ABC and FOX and now has an app that you can use to stream episodes of TV shows, a great way to catch up on episodes that you missed.
• I reviewed the DODOcase HARDcover for the iPad mini two months ago, and unlike many iPad cases that I review, I’ve continued to use this one even after the review was posted.  It’s a very nice case with a great feel to it.  I like it.  This week, Serenity Caldwell of Macworld reviewed a related cover, the DODOcase Classic for iPad mini.  It is slightly bigger than the model I reviewed and it uses a bamboo case instead of an adhesive to attach to the iPad mini.  One complaint she has is the weight, and that is an advantage of the smaller model that I reviewed, which is 130 grams versus the 182 gram model that Caldwell reviewed.  I’ve never found the DODOcase HARDcover to be too heavy, and it makes the iPad mini much more comfortable to hold.  If you like the feel of a book, you’ll like this case.
• Alexander George of The Wirecutter explains why he thinks that the Mophie Juice Pack Air is the best battery case for the iPhone 5.
• Ken Segall of Scoopertino “reports” that the white smoke was an indication that the next pope is none other than Siri.
• And finally, this quickly became a viral video this week.  Heck, even my 88-year old grandmother sent me a link to this one.  I won’t spoil it by saying anything more … spend 40 seconds to watch this cute French ad: