Why Lawyers Avoid eBooks (And Why They Shouldn’t)

Since the majority of attorneys work and access legal content outside the office and on the go, eBook adoption by legal professionals may seem like a given. In some organizations, however, eBook use isn’t very prevalent. Today, Thomson Reuters ProView® discusses the most common reasons lawyers avoid legal eBooks. If you share these concerns, our responses may give you new insights on how eBooks can positively impact your workflow and practice.

“I prefer to use my traditional books.”

Using traditional books is how most lawyers learned to research the law. They’re used to going to their familiar dog-eared copy and having it automatically fall open to the most-referenced pages.

This sentiment isn’t limited to older lawyers or to lawyers in general. Many people prefer the tactile experience of interacting with books, especially when conducting in-depth research or analytical work that requires note taking, flipping back and forth between book sections, or frequently switching between titles.

We’re not saying you have to give up books, but . . .

You’ll have more flexibility with more tools in your research toolbox.

Yes, there are times when using a book makes more sense than using an eBook – like when you want to quickly flip to that same worn page or you are pulling together research and analysis from numerous sources at once. Maybe your eyes are tired after a long day and you simply don’t want to look at a screen anymore.

At other times, eBooks offer advantages over books, such as when you are:

• Traveling or commuting, and you want to bring multiple books at a time
• Switching frequently between devices (such as using a desktop computer at the office but a tablet when working remotely), and want to avoid losing your notes and highlights or having to email your work to yourself
• Conducting research that requires a deeper database search using a tool such as Thomson Reuters Westlaw™, and you want to click back and forth between your book content and related online material

While attorneys usually don’t want to give up their traditional books, those who simultaneously use eBook technology alongside their books tend to see benefits to their workflow agility, efficiency, and mobility.

“eBooks don’t work well for legal research.”

This belief is another common reason many lawyers reject the use of legal eBooks out of hand. When most people think about eBooks, they picture common consumer eReaders. These can be great for casual reading, but as a ProView® customer has told us, the typical consumer eReader “doesn’t do the trick when reading or researching law.”

An eReader built for the beach isn’t built for the courtroom.  Attorneys need to take notes, organize information, easily come back to prior sections of text quickly, and keep organized while switching between locations (office, court, home, airports) and devices. So if you ask them to use eBooks, many will reject the idea pretty quickly because they picture themselves attempting to do professional-level work on a consumer-level eReader. They’re right – that doesn’t make sense. But there’s a solution.

You can adopt eReader technology made specifically for legal professionals.

For those lawyers rejecting eBooks on the basis of professional workflow and use requirements, it’s worth checking out an eReader developed specifically for legal professionals. A professional eReader allows attorneys to interact with their eBook content in a manner similar to the way they would when reading and researching the law using a traditional book.

Attorneys using a professional eReader are able to:

• Take notes in the text
• Highlight text using color-coding
• Bookmark sections
• Access eBooks when no Internet connection is available, such as at the courthouse or while commuting

In addition, the professional eReader adds value through features unique to digital media, allowing the user to:

• Automatically transfer notes, highlights, and bookmarks to new eBook editions
• Access the same eBooks on multiple devices
• Sync notes, highlights, and bookmarks from one device to another
• Effectively search for content by keyword or phrase
• Search for content across multiple titles at once
• Link to online content or to other eBooks with just a click
• Collaborate with colleagues more easily by sharing links to, or PDFs of, eBook content

Thomson Reuters ProView® is an eReader application that was built with legal professional research and workflow needs in mind. It provides professional features in an easy-to-learn and easy-to-use interface. Updates to ProView’s functionality are continuously made in response to customer feedback, making it superior to the average consumer beach-reading app (although if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of working while at the beach, ProView will work for you there, too).

Ready to try legal eBooks? Shop for Thomson Reuters ProView eBooks now.