More Lawyers Getting iPhones, But What Are the Best Apps?
QuickOffice screen shot
from iTunes store.
According to this year’s ABA Technology Survey, the availability of the iPhone at law firms is inching upward, which means that more lawyers are adrift on a sea of available apps.
The iPhone “barely registered” on last year’s survey, said Catherine Sanders Reach, director of the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center. Reach said that fewer than 5 percent of lawyers who provided brand names of the SmartPhones available at their firms cited the iPhone. This year, 14 percent did, making it second only to the BlackBerry, ABA Site-tation reported.
Jeff Richardson, a partner at Adams & Reese in New Orleans, has been blogging for the last six months at iPhone J.D. about the iPhone apps he learns of and uses as a lawyer. Above the Law hit him up for a top-10 ranking of the best iPhone apps for lawyers.
Some of Richardson’s picks:
• QuickOffice. This app allows a user to edit Microsoft Word documents and spreadsheets.
• DaysFrom Date Calculator. “Whenever I have to count 20 days, 100 days, etc. either forward or backwards from a date, I use this app,” Richardson writes.
• Google Mobile. This app allows a user to voice a search term into the iPhone to start a Google search, more convenient than having to type on the go.
• Facebook. Used by lawyers and nonlawyers alike, this app allows users to access the social networking site from their iPhone. “I use it to keep in touch with friends from college and law school,” Richardson writes. “You never know when one of them will be co-counsel or a client.”
