iPhone, Technology

Top Ten iPhone Apps for Biglawyers

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These days, it seems like the Blackberry stranglehold on Biglaw is loosening. Purely anecdotally, we’ve been seeing many office-pale fingers making use of iPhone touch screens to check for partner e-mails over the weekends.
Let’s move beyond the anecdotal though. Which do you prefer as your Biglaw ball and chain?

If you do have an iPhone, we imagine you spend some time at the iPhone app store tricking it out. We decided to check in with Jeff Richardson, a partner at Adams & Reese in New Orleans, for some application recommendations. Richardson is such a big fan of the iPhone that he started a blog devoted to it six months ago: iPhone J.D.
Richardson’s top 10 iPhone app picks, and a couple more polls, after the jump.


Since Richardson was passionate enough about the iPhone to found a blog devoted to it, we thought he might prove to be a good expert for suggested apps for attorneys. Here are his recommendations:

The best iPhone apps for lawyers come with with iPhone. Mail works great with corporate e-mail, especially for law firms using Microsoft Exchange. Contacts is great to store client and contact information, including pictures, notes, etc. I use the Maps app all the time to find places, especially now that Google Street View is integrated. But I presume you are asking about third party apps. So here are my picks for the Top 10 third party apps for a lawyer’s iPhone (in no particular order):
1. QuickOffice. The marquee feature is the ability to edit Word and Spreadsheet documents, but I mostly use this app as just an easy way to transfer documents to and from my iPhone and view them on the iPhone.
2. Any of the Cliff Maier reference apps. As a litigator, I frequently use his apps containing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Appellate Procedure and Title 28, and I know lots of others lawyers who use his apps with patent laws, the tax code, etc. It is incredibly useful to have the law in your pocket.
3. DaysFrom. This is a quick and easy way to count days. Whenever I have to count 20 days, 100 days, etc. either forward or backwards from a date, I use this app.
4. Wikipanion. This free app lets you quickly find information on Wikipedia.
5. Google Mobile App. I love that I can quickly start this app, hold up the iPhone to my face, and then say what I am looking for and have a Google search run based on what I say. This is often a lot faster and more convenient than typing out search terms.

6. Various weather apps. Whether I am traveling or just deciding whether to pack an umbrella as I walk to court, I have a few weather apps that I use, and I haven’t really picked a favorite yet. The Weather Channel and AccuWeather apps are great, but there is also a version of the Weather Underground website that is formatted for the iPhone web browser (i.wund.com) that I find just as useful.
7. A Twitter client. Until recently, the free TwitterFon was my favorite twitter client, but the free Twitterific 2.0 was recently released and I think it is now my favorite.
8. Facebook. Facebook’s iPhone app is nicely done, and I use it to keep in touch with friends from college and law school. You never know when one of them will be co-counsel or a client.
9. Black’s Law Dictionary is now available for the iPhone (reviewed here). Too early to tell whether Black’s will become one of my personal favorites. At $50 it is much more expensive than the normal iPhone app, but it does work well.
10. NetNewsWire. A great free app for quickly reading RSS feeds to keep up with websites.

Hey, law students, Richardson has not left you out. Earlier this month, he reviewed study aids for the iPhone.
What do you think? Did Richardson leave any essential applications off the list?
And, as promised, more polls! Some firms have gone iPhone phriendly, but we’re not sure how widespread that is. What’s the policy at your firm?

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