Today, Apple begins its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. At 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, Apple executives will give a Keynote address that will likely include a preview of the next version of the iPhone/iPad operating system. I hope that Apple also previews what is coming in the future for the Apple Watch. If you want to watch the two hour presentation as it happens, you can watch a live stream here. There are also a number of sites providing live blogs of the event, such as iMore and Macworld.
If you want a taste of what it is like to be in San Francisco for WWDC this week, California attorney David Sparks created a photo diary that will be updated throughout the week.
On Monday, Apple will begin its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. It will be a week full of sessions for app developers to learn how to make better apps for the iPhone and iPad (and better software for the Mac), but it starts off with a Keynote Address given by Apple Executives on Monday at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern. I presume that we will see previews of the next version of the iPhone/iPad and Apple Watch system software (although the new operating systems probably won’t be released until September or October), and I’m sure that Apple will have lots of other interesting things to show off. You will be able to watch a live stream of the presentation here, and I’m sure I will have something to say about it all on Tuesday. And now, the news of note from the past two weeks:
California attorney David Sparks reviews Liquid Text 2, an app for viewing PDF files that has some interesting features that lets you look at different sections of the documents at the same time.
Burney also reviews Scanner Pro, currently my favorite app for scanning documents.
A number of lawyers and legal professionals participated in a roundtable for Law Technology Today to discuss the best apps for productivity.
South Carolina attorney Justin Kahn discusses the Lexis Advance HD and TextMap apps.
Zoran Milich of Reuters reports that the U.S. Fourth Circuit ruled that police do not need a warrant to obtain a person’s location using cellphone location data in the possession of a wireless carrier.
Back in 2014, I reviewed an app called Immigration that you can use to see the statutory law relevant to immigration lawyers. The author of the app, San Francisco attorney Josh Adams, wrote me this week to say that he updated the app in several ways: “I enhanced the app to display subsections in variable-length rows. I also added the ability to see subsections on their own screen by long-pressing. Not only that, I have added three additional sources of procedure: the Immigration Court Practice Manual, the Board of Immigration Appeals Practice Manual, and the Foreign Affairs Manual.” Click here to get Immigration ($24.99):
In an article for Macworld, J.R. Bookwalter reviews Avvo, an app that helps individuals find and pay for an attorney.
David Sparks is worried that subscription pricing will lead to subscription fatigue. This is possible, but I like the idea of providing continual support to the developer of a useful app so that the app is improved. Having said that, I admit that it could be a problem if a developer stops improving an app, because I presume that if you stop paying then the app stops working. I currently have some older apps that I purchased a long time ago which I continue to use but haven’t been updated in a long time. We’ll have to see how this all pans out in actual use, but in general I support the idea of more flexible pricing models.
Motion Stills is an interesting app from Google that creates GIFs from Live Photos, improving the result by using video stabilization technology. It’s pretty neat.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had his LinkedIn password hacked. And since he used the same password — dadada — on Twitter and Pinterest, those accounts were hacked too. Holly Ellyatt of CNBC has more details. Take this as a public service announcement that you should not use the same password on multiple sites. Especially if you are Mark Zuckerberg.
Djuro Sen of Australia’s 7 News reports on a mother who used the “Hey Siri” function to call an ambulance after she dropped her phone, rushing to get her one-year-old daughter breathing again. Siri called the ambulance, and now the girl is fine.
David Pogue of Yahoo! Finance discusses services that you can use to digitize your old videotapes before they deteriorate. I used an old videotape player and a box that connects that to a computer to digitize my old videotapes a few years ago. I’m glad that I did so because many of those tapes were clearly on their last legs, and it would have been a shame to lose the memories forever. Plus, my old videos included family members who are no longer alive. If you haven’t yet taken steps to preserve your aging photographs and videos, I urge you to do so.
And finally, Apple released some great new “shot on iPhone” video ads this week. Buster Hein of Cult of Mac created a post with all seven of them embedded. I especially like this one, shot by Craig J. of Kasane, Botswana:
For the past few weeks, I’ve been preparing for an oral argument before the U.S. Fifth Circuit, which took place yesterday. My iPad has been a critical part of of the process, so I thought I’d talk about some of the ways that I have been using my iPad to prepare for and present my oral argument. I happen to be using as 12.9" iPad Pro, and that huge screen was fantastic as I reviewed items in the record on appeal. Nevertheless, everything that I did would have worked with other iPad models too.
Record on Appeal
The Fifth Circuit is completely electronic and paperless. You file a brief by using a website (somewhat similar to the Pacer system used at the federal district court level). Judges also read briefs using iPads, as has been previously reported by Ray Ward, an appellate attorney at my firm who publishes the Louisiana Civil Appeals blog. So unsurprisingly, the Record on Appeal is also provided in an electronic format. You download it using the Fifth Circuit’s (rather clunky) Java-based system using a computer.
In my case, the Record on Appeal consisted of a docket sheet plus 22 volumes, each a separate PDF file. Each volume contained around 400 pages. The bottom right of each page had an annotation with the page number, affixed by the district court when it prepared the Record on Appeal.
The first thing that I did was rename each of those PDF files so that the title corresponded to the page number of the first page in the volume, such as 3532.pdf, 3932.pdf, 4332,pdf, 4720.pdf, 5018.pdf, etc. That way, I could quickly determine which volume contained a specific page. For example, if I wanted page 3894, I knew that it was in the file called 3532.pdf because the next volume started with a number higher than 3894. I actually did all of this way back when I was drafting my Appellee Brief, but it remained just as useful in preparing for oral argument.
Inside of the folder in my Dropbox associated with this case, I created a subfolder called Record on Appeal and added all of the PDF files. Then, I used the GoodReader app to sync everything into GoodReader on my iPad.
Most of the items in the Record on Appeal in my case were already OCR’d. For example, any brief filed at the district court level was a PDF created from a word processing document, and thus already had the text embedded in the PDF file. Additionally, in my cases, most of the depositions were also filed in a format with text embedded. However, for volumes with important information that I would want to be able to search using a full text search, I used a program on my PC to OCR the document and saved that version into my folder. Having a document or exhibit OCR’d is also handy if you want to highlight words in the document.
As a part of my preparation for oral argument, I reviewed the entire Record on Appeal. (Of course, I had already looked at most of it to prepare my Appellee Brief a few months back.) As I reviewed the record, whenever I came across something important I annotated it, either using the highlight feature of GoodReader, or sometimes by using a stylus to circle something and/or make notes in the margins. For particularly important items, I used the Bookmarks feature of GoodReader so that I could jump directly there in the future.
One nice feature of the electronic Record on Appeal is that it already contained a built-in outline of the items. Thus, I could use the Outline feature of GoodReader to see an index of all of the items in each volume of the record, which made it quick to jump around.
After reviewing the Record on Appeal on my iPad, annotating and/or bookmarking what was important, and then returning to the important parts to review them again, I had a pretty good handle on the facts in the record.
Cases
Of course, the facts are half of the story; you also need to know the law. I downloaded in PDF format from Westlaw or Lexis each of the important cases cited in any of the briefs, and even some cases not cited in the briefs but that could be relevant, and put them all in a folder on Dropbox called Research. I synced those over to my iPad as well so that I could read, highlight, and annotate cases.
Briefs
As you can guess, I also had another folder on Dropbox with all of the appellant and appellee briefs in my case.
Other apps
GoodReader was the main app that I used to prepare for oral argument, but I used some others as well. My particular case happened to involve a series of houses in a certain neighborhood of New Orleans. I used the Apple Maps app to get a general overview — a bird’s eye view — of what the neighborhood looked like. I also used Google Maps and its Streeview feature to see what particular houses looked like from the street. None of this was in the record so it isn’t like I would specifically reference in oral argument something that I saw, but these mapping apps helped me to get a general understanding of the properties at issue in my case.
I used the Westlaw app to do legal research on my iPad. Of course with the briefs already submitted most of the core research had already been done, but it was still helpful to read key cases in those apps and then learn how other courts quoted and dealt with those cases.
As I prepared for oral argument, I used Microsoft Word on my computer to take notes and prepare the outline of my argument. While I did most of that work on my computer, I also sometimes used the Microsoft Word app on my iPad to modify those documents. For example, one night I was on my couch at home reviewing cases and I thought of another argument, so I used the LogMeIn app to connect to my work computer and access my outline, opened it in Word on my iPad, made the changes to the outline, and then saved the file back to my work computer.
In this particular case I was brought in as appeal counsel, and thus I worked with the PDF copies of transcripts in the Record on Appeal. However, had I been involved in the case at the district court level, I suspect that the deposition and hearing transcripts would have already been in the TranscriptPad app on my iPad and I might have used that app to read and annotate transcripts. But in this case, I didn’t happen to use TranscriptPad.
The net result
As a result of the above activities, I had the record, the caselaw, and everything else that I needed to prepare for oral argument on my iPad. This was very convenient because whether I was working in my office, at home, in a conference room at my firm, or in another attorney’s office, I always had instant access to all aspects of the case.
It wasn’t that many years ago that I was working on appeals with the record in paper form, bound in volumes that took up many boxes. I would spread them out on a table and make that the war room for my appeal, but it meant that every time I wanted to review the record I had to go to that room. It is infinitely more convenient to have all aspects of the record with me at all times, just a tap or two away.
The day of oral argument
As I noted in a post last year, the Fifth Circuit generally does not allow you to use electronic devices in the courtroom. Your iPhone must be turned off — not just airplane mode. However, the Fifth Circuit adopted a rule in January of 2015 (available here) which states that “an attorney presenting argument or assisting at counsel table may use a laptop, tablet, or similar device.”
In fact, as I entered the courtroom of the Fifth Circuit yesterday, I saw a sign confirming the same policy:
I took full advantage of this policy. No, I didn’t use my iPad to be paperless during oral argument. For example, my outline was on the front and back of a single sheet of paper. Because I memorized my prepared comments, I didn’t really need that sheet of paper much, but it was comforting to know that it was there. (And given the number of questions that the judges asked, I didn’t follow the outline anyway.) Also, I had printed out that short Microsoft Word file that contained my notes, such as information on the important cases, additional information about items in the record on appeal, etc. I also printed out the two most important cases so that I could more easily quote from them during oral argument if necessary. (I turned out, that wasn’t necessary because the few quotes I needed were on my outline.)
But thanks to my iPad, I didn’t need to also lug around a ton of paper, binders, etc. with all of the briefs, other cases, the Record on Appeal, etc. If I needed to look up something from the record or a case as my opponent was arguing, everything was on my iPad so I could do so — complete with all of the annotations I created as I prepared for oral argument. Thus, I had the security of knowing that everything was with me, without all of the cumbersome paper that would have make it virtually impossible to quickly jump to the one page that I need. And when I went up to the podium, I just took those few sheets of paper including my outline and notes, my iPad, and the legal pad that I had used to take notes while my opponent spoke.
There were a few settings on my iPad that I changed the morning of oral argument. First, I turned the volume all the way down to zero. Second, in the Settings app, I went to General -> Auto-Lock and changed it from my normal 5 minutes to Never. That way, if I had an important case or record item on my screen, it would stay on my screen without having my lock screen show up after a few minutes. In court, I did not tether to my iPhone (which was off) or attempt to connect to any Wi-Fi network because I didn’t want any text messages, emails, or other alerts showing up on my screen. (My iPad doesn’t have a built-in cellular connection, but if it did, I would have turned it off.)
Conclusion
Obviously, I don’t yet know whether I will win or lose this appeal. But whatever the result, I was much better prepared thanks to my iPad. [UPDATE 8/8/16: Fortunately, I did win!] The annotation tools in GoodReader were incredibly helpful and easy to use, and the time that I saved not searching for paper (or traveling to a file room containing all of that paper) gave me much more time to analyze the facts and the law.
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This article won the LitigationWorld Pick of the Week award. The editors of LitigationWorld, a free weekly email newsletter for litigators and others who work in litigation, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.
I love the activity monitoring features of the Apple Watch which keep track of when I’m active and encourage me to be more active, but it is also interesting to think about how this feature could prove important in a lawsuit. In an article for article for Law Technology Today, UK attorney Paul Morrison discusses how wearable technology, such as an Apple Watch, could provide relevant and discoverable information in a personal injury case. A plaintiff who is less active after an accident might try to use Apple Watch measurements to prove the decrease in activity. Similarly, a defense attorney who questions the extent of a plaintiff’s injuries may try to access activity readings to show the the plaintiff’s daily activities did not change after an accident. I’ll be curious to see the first case in which an Apple Watch provides critical evidence. And now, the news of note from the past week:
One of the most useful accessories for the iPad Pro is the Apple Pencil. Christine Lachance of iMore discusses useful accessories for the Apple Pencil.
And finally, Turkish musician iPhonedo creates the Game of Thrones theme song using the new Chinese instruments that Apple recently added to the GargeBand app. Here is a video showing him creating the song. This guy is somewhat crazy, but the song he created using his iPad is really impressive. You can also download his GarageBand file and play with it on your own iPad or Mac. (via The Mac Observer)
Apps in Law is a new website which launched this week and which highlights the best apps for lawyers. The site is published by Brett Burney, an e-discovery consultant based in Ohio who has long had his thumb on the pulse of legal technology. Burney was the chair of ABA TECHSHOW in 2015, and because Burney and I have given presentations together in the past, I know first-hand that he knows his stuff — especially when it comes to Apple technology.
The format of Apps in Law is to provide a short, focused review of helpful apps, accompanied by a short, fast-paced video showing off the app. The website debuts with reviews of GoodReader (one of the most useful apps in my law practice), Noteshelf, Week Calendar and iAnnotate.
I always love hearing about apps that are useful to attorneys, especially when they are apps that I am not currently using. I look forward to seeing new posts on the Apps in Law website, and I’ve already added it to my RSS reader. If you are looking for another source to learn about useful apps for lawyers, you’ll want to keep an eye on this one.
Back in March of 2010, when the iPhone 3GS running iPhone Software 3.1 was the latest-and-greatest, the default wallpaper image on the iPhone was an image of the Earth. If you are a long-time iPhone user, you probably remember that picture. I wrote about this history of that image, known as Blue Marble, in a post on March 10, 2010. That post still gets a decent amount of traffic today from people searching the Internet for information on the image. I’ve updated that post over the years as new images of the Earth have become available. For example, yesterday I added links to the cool pictures and video of the moon passing in front of the Earth lit by the Sun, taken from the EPIC camera on the DSCOVR satellite.
I thought about that post on Sunday night, and again last night, when my kids and I looked at the sky both nights and could see Mars. It was fun to see the planet even without the aid of a telescope, and even in a city where we have lots of streetlights and other interference which normally makes it hard to see anything but the Moon at night. As Geoff Gaherty of Space.com explains, Mars has been opposite the Sun in the Earth’s sky, making it bright and easy to see with the naked eye. If you haven’t seen Mars yet, try again tonight. It’s really neat to see another planet so easily.
At first, we had trouble finding Mars. Thus, I launched the Star Walk 2 app ($2.99: ), a cool app that lets you hold up your iPhone to the night sky; as you move your iPhone around, the app tells you all of the stars, planets, etc. that you are looking at. It turned out that Mars was being blocked from our view by the house across the street. But a few minutes later, Mars rose through the sky and we could see it. Before my son went to bed, he took this picture from his bedroom window using my iPhone, with the Moon in the bottom left and Mars in the top right:
In the iPhone picture taken at very low light, Mars is just a faint white dot. In real life, it was brighter, plus it was orange-red, not white like a star.
Speaking of using your iPhone to explore space, the New York Times recently added a great virtual reality video of Pluto, using images taken with the New Horizons satellite. You need the free NYT VR app to view the video, which I reviewed last year. You can watch the video with any iPhone, but to get the best experience you need to put your iPhone inside of a Google Cardboard device. VR technology is not quite to the point where I can say that watching this video made me feel 100% like I was there, but with headphones on and using Google Cardboard, it was a truly immersive experience, not unlike what you might get at a nice planetarium. My 10 year old son is even more interested in space than I am, and both of us really enjoyed the New York Times presentation on Pluto. Very cool.
One last app that I’ll recommend is Luminos ($14.99: ). This astronomy app has an incredible amount of information about space. You can use it to explore the sky, just like Star Walk 2, but you can also get an incredible amount of information on objects in the sky, track satellites, look at Hubble images, simulate being on another planet, etc. It also gives you information about what you can view every day, works on the iPhone and iPad, and even has an Apple Watch app.
Whichever app you use, enjoy learning more about space using your iPhone and iPad!
If you really enjoy using an iPad, does that mean that you should buy two of them? On his Mobile Barbarian website, Los Angeles attorney Jeffrey Kent explains why he owns and uses two iPad Pros — both the 9.7" version and the 12.9" version. Similarly, California attorney David Sparks also uses both models of the iPad, and he recently explained his reasons for using two iPads at once on Episode 317 of the Mac Power Users podcast. Although this is only an audio podcast, in my mind’s eye I could see his co-host, Florida attorney Katie Floyd, shaking her head and sighing as David explained himself. As for me, I don’t think I could justify buying two iPad Pros, but I have to admit that I do understand the thinking and I am just a little jealous. I have used two iPads at once before. When the first generation iPad mini was released, for a long time I used both the iPad mini and an iPad 3 at the same time, carrying both back and forth to work every day. I liked the bigger screen of the iPad 3, but I also liked that the iPad mini was so light and easy to hold. Once the iPad Air was released, giving me both a larger screen and a lighter device, I went back to using one iPad. Now that I use the 12.9" iPad Pro, I am back to using an iPad that is heavier than I would prefer, and there are times during the day when I am not taking full advantage of the larger screen and I would appreciate having something smaller, lighter, and easier to hold. And now, the news of note from the past week:
If you live near Cleveland, OH and you read this post early Friday morning, there is still time to get to the Apple Store, Eton in Woodmere, OH for 9am to hear Brett Burney speaking about using Macs, iPhones and iPads in a law practice. Click here for more information.
Christine Lachance of iMore recommends Apple Watch accessories: extra bands, stands, screen protectors, travel cases, and Bluetooth headphones. The first accessory that I bought for my wife (a new Apple Watch owner) was a Spigen Apple Watch Night Stand, which I have been using for nine months and still really like.
Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that this week was the 15th anniversary of the first two Apple retail stores.
As Apple looks to the future of its retail stores, changes are in the works. Apple had a press event this week to describe what is coming, and Jim Dalrymple of The Loop wrote about it.
Readdle updated its PDF Expert app with better support for the Apple Pencil and the ability to sync documents between devices. For more information, check out this Readdle blog post.
Walter Glenn of How-To Geek explains how to teach Siri who people are, so that you can just say “call my plumber” instead of remembering the plumber’s name.
Apple recently announced that it was investing $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, a company in China that is similar to Uber. If you want a good analysis of why Apple did that, well this isn’t the article to read. But if you want a humorous take on it, then check out this post by John Moltz of It’s A Very Nice Web Site.
TrialPad is one of the most powerful and sophisticated apps that a lawyer can use on an iOS device. The app gives you the ability to present evidence to a jury, judge, or other audience, something that otherwise requires expensive software on a computer. And thanks to clever software design and the easy-to-use interface of an iPad, anyone can learn how to use the app.
The TrialPad app was first released in 2010 — the same year that the iPad itself debuted — and has seen numerous major updates over the years. As TrialPad has been updated, Apple has introduced faster and more powerful iPads, which makes all apps, especially sophisticated apps like TrialPad, work better. Apple’s current flagship iPads are the 9.7" and 12.9" iPad Pros. TrialPad version 4.5, introduced last week, adds full support for these devices including the larger screen of the 12.9" iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil.
I was given a free copy of this $129.99 app for review purposes, but this is an app that I would definitely spend my own money on. Frankly, the cost is cheap compared to the other expenses that lawyers have preparing for a trial or mediation, not to mention compared to legal software for the PC that is harder to use. Over the years, I have heard from many lawyers who have described how they used TrialPad to successfully present evidence in trials, and lawyers have even told me that they purchased an iPad specifically so that they can use TrialPad — about the best proof there can be that this is a seriously useful tool.
Cases Screen
The main screen of the app is the Cases Screen. It works the same as the main screen in the TranscriptPad app (my review) and it is where you create folders for each of your cases or projects. You can assign different colors to different folders to help you to organize them and pick out a folder more easily.
From the Cases Screen, you can easily import exhibits and other documents from Dropbox, Box, Citrix ShareFile, a Transporter or a WebDAV device. I was able to quickly transfer a large number of files using Dropbox, Citrix ShareFile and my Transporter. You can also transfer files from a computer by using iTunes and connecting your iPad to the computer with a USB cable.
In addition to importing individual files or a set of files, you can also import a .zip file (under 1 GB), which lets you create folders and subfolders on your computer, and then maintain those folders when you import into TrialPad.
Case Screen
Once you select one of your case folders on the Cases Screen, you are presented with the Case Screen with all of the content associated with a specific case. On the left side of the screen you will see a list of the folders and documents inside of that case. You can create new folders and move documents into folders.
On the right side of the screen, you see a preview of whatever document is selected. If you are not connected to a monitor, the document will fill the right side of the screen. If you are connected to a monitor, you will see a rectangle corresponding to your external screen, with the document inside of that screen.
You can pinch to zoom a document, so that only part of it is on the output screen.
The above pictures show you what you see on your iPad when you are using TrialPad. But your audience just sees the output, such as on an external monitor or the projected image. The three buttons next to “Output” at the bottom of the iPad screen control what the audience sees. With Blank selected, the audience just sees a black screen. With Freeze selected, the audience sees what is currently in your preview area at the time that you press the Freeze button. You can then use the TrialPad app to go find some other exhibit, which the audience will not see until you press Freeze again.
If you press the Present button, then the audience will see essentially the same thing that you are seeing in the Preview window. I say “essentially” because while you are in the process of zooming in on a part of the document on your iPad, the output screen doesn’t zoom until you release your fingers from the iPad screen. This is a nice feature because it means that you can zoom in and search for the exact part you want to display, and then when you are finished and you remove your fingers from the screen, the audience just sees a zoom right to that specific area.
The Blank button can be useful if there is an objection to something that you are showing to a jury. Tap Blank and the output screen immediately goes black, so that you can then discuss the objection with the judge. If the objection is overruled, tap Freeze or Present to put the document back on the screen.
You can use a slider on the right side of the preview screen to move between pages of a document, either by dragging the slider, or by tapping the arrows at the top and bottom to advance one page at a time. You can also swipe on the document itself to advance forward or backward.
If you want to see more of the document on your iPad screen, you can expand the preview window by tapping the two arrow at the top of the screen.
By default, TrialPad displays one page of a document at a time, but if you tap the button near the bottom right you can change to a Split Screen mode where two pages are shown at once. They can be two pages from the same document, or two pages from different documents.
Annotation Tools
One of the most powerful features of TrialPad is the ability to use annotation tools, and you can see some of the tools at work in the above images. You can highlight part of a document. (And the app highlights the correct way, keeping the underlying text a dark black — unlike some inferior apps that highlight by applying an opaque yellow box that makes the underlying text harder to read.) You can use a Pen tool to write on the document (which works incredibly well with the Apple Pencil) or draw straight lines. You can use the Redact tool to apply a white or black box over portions of a document. You can use the Laser tool to access a virtual laser pointer, making it easy to emphasize part of a document while you are discussing it with the jury or other audience.
Perhaps the most useful tool for when you are working with documents is the Callout tool. Select a portion of a page of a document, and have that part blow up on the screen so that your audience can more easily see it. One good way to do it is to first highlight the text so that the audience sees what you are emphasizing, and then use Callout to zoom in on that area to make the text easy to read. The effect is very professional.
The Callout function works especially well with the Apple Pencil because it is so precise. Simply tap exactly where you want one corner of the callout to occur, drag down to the opposite corner, and then let go. The end result is much more exact and professional with an Apple Pencil versus just using your finger.
At the bottom right of the screen, an Undo button lets you undo annotations one at a time, and the Clear button lets you undo all annotations and go back to the original document.
In addition to annotating on a document, you can annotate on a blank canvas, thus letting you use TrialPad as a virtual whiteboard.
Key Docs
Sometimes you will want to annotate a document as you are speaking, so that you can walk the audience through your annotations. But other times you will want to prepare the annotations beforehand, and then pull up the document with the annotations already there. The Key Docs feature lets you prepare annotations beforehand. Simply apply all of your annotations in the Preview Window and then tap the key at the top right of the screen. You have the option of adding just that page of a document to your list of Key Docs, or you can add the entire document to your Key Docs. Either way, all of your annotations are preserved so that you can quickly see them again later without taking the time in front of your audience to create the annotations.
Working with exhibits
TrialPad has some special tools for working with exhibits. First, the app gives you the ability to apply exhibit stickers to a document, or to a group of documents. You control what goes in the different portions of the sticker, such as the header and footer of the sticker, the color of the sticker, where the sticker is applied on the document, etc. You can even automatically generate exhibit sticker information from the file names.
Screenshot
You can also use TrialPad to keep track of which exhibits are admitted into evidence in a case. Just hold down on a document in the Preview Window to see the option to mark the document as Admitted.
Admitted documents have the word “Admitted” just under the document title on the left portion of the screen, and they also show up under the Admitted tab on that left portion of the screen.
Multimedia
In addition to presenting static documents and images, you can also present videos and audio. The app includes a simple video editing tool so that you can clip a video to just the portion that you want to show.
Output
You can connect your iPad to a monitor or projector by using Apple’s Lightning to VGA or Lightning to HDMI adapters. You can also connect an Apple TV to a monitor or projector and then create a wireless connection between your iPad and the Apple TV, allowing you to walk around a room with no cables connected to the iPad.
Snapshots
While TrialPad is primarily an app used to show documents to a live audience, you can also use the app to create PDF files thanks to a new feature added last week called Snapshots. After you are done annotating a document, tap the camera icon at the top right. This creates a PDF image of whatever you are seeing in the Preview Area, including annotations and callouts. You can access your Snapshots in a case in the Snapshots folder, and then you can email, print, or do whatever you want with the PDF file. For example, I can imagine including something like this in a submission paper to a mediator before a mediation so that you can use highlighting and a callout to focus the mediator’s attention to a specific part of a document. You can also use the Snapshots feature to create a nice slide to use in Keynote or PowerPoint in an Opening or Closing Argument, with the document in the background and a callout of the important quote in the document on top.
Tell me more
Because TrialPad is such a sophisticated app, there are lots of features that you may not discover on your own, even though they are easy to remember once you know about them. For example, tap with two fingers on any callout to make it disappear.
Fortunately, it is easy to learn all of these tricks and tips. Just tap the Help button at the top right of the Cases Screen, and the fourth option down is User Guide. Tap it to open up a PDF file (formatted for the iPad screen dimensions) that walks you through everything that you need to know about the app. Or, the fifth option under Help launches a page in Safari where you can watch videos about all of Lit Software’s apps, including an excellent 27 minute TrialPad overview narrated by Ian O’Flaherty, the creator of this app. (You can also view all of those videos without purchasing the app just by clicking here.)
Conclusion
TrialPad lets you present evidence or other documents to an external screen or monitor in a very professional manner. Because the app is easy to learn how to use, you can use it yourself when you are in trial or giving a presentation without having to rely on, and pay for, a trial graphics specialist to assist you. Or, if you would prefer to let someone else handle the mechanics of presenting the evidence while you talk to the judge or jury, that person can use TrialPad to handle the presentations while you speak.
While the app has special tools for working with exhibits in trial, you can use it for any kind of presentation in which you want to display documents for others, even a simple client meeting or meeting with a witness.
I’ve used TrialPad in the past, but I especially like this latest version on my 12.9" iPad Pro. The iPad Pro has the oomph to quickly work with documents, and the large screen makes it even easier to view and annotate documents. You can use TrialPad with smaller iPad screens, but the app really shines on the largest iPad.
However you use it, TrialPad is an essential iPad app for any lawyer who has the need to show and annotate a document on an external screen for an audience.
Click here to get Trialpad ($129.99):
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Emails sent and received by an attorney are not just a form of communication. Sometimes, they are themselves evidence. Thus, attorneys often have a need to turn an email into a document, typically a PDF document. I am frequently asked if it is possible to create a PDF version of an email on the iPhone or iPad. I typically use Microsoft Outlook on my computer to do this (printing to a virtual PDF printer), but if you need to do it on an iOS device, it is currently possible to do so … but only if you are using an iPhone 6s (or an iPhone 6s Plus). The reason for that limitation is that this method requires the use of 3D Touch, which is only available on those new models. Here is how you do it.
1. Select the print option for the email
The first step is to open the email in question and select the print option. In my example, I’ve selected an email of the BlawgWorld newsletter from TechnoLawyer. With my email selected, I next tap the arrow at the bottom of the screen. This causes a menu to pop up. Just below Reply and Forward, you will see an option to Print. Tap Print.
2. 3D Touch the preview
After you tap Print you will see a screen with Printer Options. You can ignore everything on the top half of the screen, including the Print button. Instead, just pay attention to the bottom of the screen, which shows you a preview of what it would look like if you printed the email. You can swipe left and right to see how many pages it would be.
Everything I have showed you so far works on all iPhones and iPads, but what you next need to do only currently works on the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus: 3D Touch on the image of the print preview. When you first push harder on the screen, you will see the preview pop up. (I wasn’t able to take a screenshot of this action.) When the preview pops up, push down even harder. That will open up the preview image into its own PDF file, which looks like this:
3. Export the PDF file
The final step is to act upon the PDF file that you just created. Tap the action button at the top right (the box with the arrow pointing up). That gives you all of the normal options that you see when you are working with a PDF file. For example, you can email the PDF file, open the PDF file into one of the many apps that can handle PDF files, save the PDF file to your Dropbox, etc.
That’s it. Now you have a PDF version of your email.
The future
There may currently be ways to turn an email into a PDF file using a third party email app, but I don’t know about it. [UPDATE: A comment to this post points out the at the Spark app includes this feature, and I just confirmed this in a test with my Gmail account.] I tend not to use those apps with my work email because many of the apps require transferring my emails to a third party server, which makes me worried about confidentiality and security. For now, the above method is the only way to create a PDF version of an email using the built-in Mail app.
[UPDATE: A reader emailed me to suggest taking a screenshot while you are looking at an email. Then you can use any PDF app to convert that image to a PDF file. I didn’t mention this when I first wrote this post because you will need to stitch together multiple screenshots to make this work, unless it is a really short email, so this is a far from elegant solution. But it might work in a pinch.]
In the future, we will have more devices with 3D Touch — certainly more iPhones, and perhaps iPads too. But my hope is that Apple also creates a way to make this procedure work even if you are using an older device that doesn’t have 3D Touch. Apple will announce the next version of iOS in just a few weeks, at its developer conference called WWDC which takes place June 13 to 17, 2016 in San Francisco. Perhaps we will see this announced soon, and available when the next iOS update comes out in a few months. We’ll see.
For now, if you are using a new iPhone that supports 3D Touch, you already have the power to turn an email into a PDF document.
My wife started using an Apple Watch a few days ago (it was a Mother’s Day present) and it has been interesting watching someone else get up to speed with the device. Indeed, given the extended shipping dates for many 38mm Apple Watch bands right now (some are at 10-12 weeks, others a 4-6 weeks), I suspect that there were lots of other mothers who just got one too. My own Apple Watch has been mute for over a year, so it actually surprised me to hear her watch making noises with alerts. As I would have guessed, the notifications feature and the activity circles seem to be the most popular features for her, but she also uses a third party app called Things on the watch to manage her to-do items. And now, the news of note from the past week:
There was a major update this week to TrialPad, the app that lets you present evidence from an iPad. Version 4.5 adds support for the larger iPad Pro screen and Pro accessories, such as the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil. There are also new annotation tools and improvements to the Key Docs feature. Click here for more information from the Lit Software blog, and click here for more information from the TL NewsWire from TechnoLawyer.
Lit Software’s DocReviewPad was also recently updated, with iPad Pro support, more features for working with Bates numbers, etc. Click here for more information from the Lit Software blog.
Last week, I mentioned that Ernie “Ernie the Attorney” Svenson was about to launch an online course for lawyers looking to modernize their law practice with technology. You can now register for the course, but only until May 19, when registration will close until the next set of classes begin. Ernie is a great teacher; I have attended many of his CLE sessions and co-spoke with him numerous times. And he has excellent advice on making your law practice paperless. You have to pay for the courses, but there is a 30-day money back guarantee so you can check it out and decide if it is right for you.
Florida attorney Katie Floyd offers advice for speeding up audio files so that you can listen to a CLE even faster.
When Apple launched the Apple Watch, there were news stories about a health lab being run by Apple to develop the activity monitoring features of the watch. Tim Bajarin writes in an article for Time that he recently visited the lab, which is still going strong 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. He also writes that part of the reason for the health focus of the Apple Watch is that Steve Jobs spent so much time with the healthcare system during the last years of his life.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball discusses Gboard, a new alternative on-screen keyboard for the iPhone from Google that lets you search Google from the keyboard. Thus, if you want to look something up while you are typing, you don’t need to exit your app and launch Safari to do the search. I have yet to find a third party keyboard that I prefer to the standard keyboard, but I’m glad to see new creative efforts to make a better keyboard.
Jason Snell of Six Colors reviews the Logitech Base, an iPad Pro stand that uses the smart connector to charge the iPad.
Christopher Mele of the New York Times reports on a 15-year-old boy who collected over 200 vintage Apple computers. It seems like just yesterday I was using many of these computers now considered “vintage.”
And finally, a new Apple ad features Neil Patrick Harris using Siri on his iPhone to practice giving a thank you speech. Perhaps a technique for preparing your next opening statement? Maybe not. Still, it’s an amusing ad.
