It seems that everyone (even lawyers!) has an iPad today. Accordingly, it seems appropriate that we look at the top rated iPad apps for lawyers that turn the iPad into a wonderful tool for all lawyers.

By David J. Bilinsky

TrialPad

Starting from a litigator’s perspective, there is the TrialPad App (www.trialpad.com). Of course, an iPad can be connected to a data projector and brought into court. TrialPad can be used to present evidence in court, mediations, arbitrations, tribunals or in client meetings. This application takes Adobe Acrobat and JPG, GIF, PNG, TIF, Multi-Page TIF, and TXT files (typically imported from Dropbox onto the iPad and then use an Apple Digital AV adaptor) as well as video files (HDMI cable required) (check the TrialPad specs for specific supported formats) and allows you to display them side by side, zoom and annotate the documents. This $89 app packs a very big punch. A great review can be found at: http://bit.ly/vcDpLo.

Audiotorium Notes

This note-taking app ($5.99) is stated to be the best note-taking app available for the iPad. It’s approach of organizing notes by Category and Subject is unique. You can highlight, bold, underline, and create bullets for your notes as well as use multiple fonts with multiple colors. It records audio as well with bookmarks. Since lawyers always deal with confidential information, it is good to know that it has a passcode feature. It is also integrated with Dropbox. Furthermore, it has integrated TextExpander support, which allows you to insert the date, time, formulas, common phrases or any other text with just a few keystrokes (http://bit.ly/d1dkIA). 

SignMyPad

This $3.99 app allows you …or your clients …to sign PDF documents directly on the iPad, using the optional magnetic stylus or their finger. After signing you can save the document, send it or print it. (http://bit.ly/laGr3j)

Evernote

This iTunes Hall of Fame app has been named “NY Times Top 10 Must-Have Apps” as well as the Winner, Best Mobile App from TechCrunch, Mashable and the Webbies. Even better, it is free. It helps you remember everything – from notes, to pictures, to recordings. You can create text, photo and audio notes and auto synchronize them to your Mac, PC and to the Web (PDF, Word, Excel, PPT and other formats). You can even search text within snapshots! (http://bit.ly/tceUbm)

Wunderlist

Another iTunes Hall of Fame app, this cloud-based and synched task manager has been named one of the “10 Best Productivity Apps of 2010” by The Next Web. It is also free. It is a multi-platform (Mac, PC, iPhone and iPad, Android, Linux and the Web) and keeps your task lists synched between the multiple devices. If you wish, you can share your tasks (useful for legal assistants and legal secretaries). You can email reminders and email yourself tasks to Wunderlist. Deadlines and due dates are incorporated as well as Notes and Prioritization. (http://bit.ly/c5CmDF) 

Articles

If you are like me, you spend a great deal of time on Wikipedia researching things. Articles is another App Hall of Famer that is a Wikipedia reader. Its award-winning interface optimizes Wikipedia articles for reading on an iPhone, iPod and iPad. You can add articles to your “Read Later Queue” and search for text on pages. You can bookmark, see recent items and lookup past article titles. Images can be saved easily as well. Best of all you can lock down the orientation to ensure that it doesn’t change as you are reading. $0.99 (http://bit.ly/ae8F0p) 

This article originally appeared in the February 2012 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch.