.KEYWORD lawfirm
.FLYINGHEAD THE PALM LAWYER
.TITLE Palm solutions for lawyers
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY With the advent of wireless solutions for the Palm device, it’s now possible to conduct sophisticated real-time legal research anywhere, anytime. This is just one of the many great advantages intellectual property lawyer Ury Fischer has discovered since becoming a Palm computer user. In this exclusive article, Fischer shares his success at incorporating Palm computing into his life and work.
.AUTHOR Ury Fischer
I’m a litigator at Lott & Friedland, P.A., (at http://www.lott-friedland.com) an intellectual property law firm located in Coral Gables, FL. South Florida. The region where I live and work, has been dubbed "silicon beach" due to the large number of Internet start-ups headquartered here. For better or worse, this has meant daily interaction with clients who are, for the most part, early adopters and heavy users of technology designed to make them as efficient as possible with their time. My clients, in turn, expect me to rival their use of this technology in delivering legal services. After all, the more productive I am with my time while I’m "on the clock," the more money my client saves.
My goal is to provide some insight into how I’ve incorporated the use of a Palm device into my practice to achieve the level of productivity demanded by my clients. My hope is that other lawyers will put some of my ideas to work in their own practices, or, better yet, that I can convince someone who has never used a Palm device to give it a try.
In my experience, PDAs are the most useful when I’m out of the office. About 90% of the time I’m out of the office, I’m in one of three places: at the courthouse, at a deposition, or visiting a client. My Palm device comes in handy at each one of these places.
.H1 The courthouse
One thing you learn early on as a litigator is that no matter how much stuff you put in your brief bag, you always miss something you’ll need in court. Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to worry about making sure you have every document you need for a hearing? I use Documents to Go from DataViz at http://www.dataviz.com. There are a great number of document editors and viewers available, including QuickOffice at http://www.cesinc.com/quickoffice/. With this type of software, you can set up your Palm device to automatically upload files in supported formats every time you HotSync with your desktop computer.
To use Documents to Go, you simply designate the directories on your hard drive that you’d like to copy to your PDA. The program then automatically converts all files it can recognize within those directories into a Palm-compatible format and uploads them during the next HotSync. This is great when you want to make sure every document in a particular file is at your fingertips at all times. You simply point Documents to Go to the directory where the files reside, and all the work is done for you in the background every time you HotSync.
Documents to Go is smart enough to recognize when a document you previously uploaded has changed and updates the document in your PDA with the new file. This feature is great with documents that are constantly being updated as a case evolves, such as witness lists, case outlines, and case chronologies. Documents to Go supports every popular word processing format and even handles spreadsheets.
I find it very useful to convert cases to a Palm-compatible format so that I can review them just before a hearing. The search functions found in most Palm-based readers make the Palm versions of cases far superior to the paper copies I used to carry with me into court. There are several readers available for download that are excellent for this. If your budget is limited and you’re willing to do without bells and whistles, many of these readers are available in free "lite" versions. The most popular readers are AportisDoc (at http://www.aportis.com) and TealDoc (at http://www.tealpoint.com).
My favorite program for creating Palm compatible documents is a simple freeware utility called DocReader (available for download at http://www.crosswinds.net/~mpicker0/DocReader/DocReader.htm). You can simply type or cut and paste text into DocReader, and your files are saved in Palm format ready to be synchronized to your PDA.
.CALLOUT With the advent of wireless solutions for the Palm device, it’s now possible to conduct sophisticated real-time legal research anywhere, anytime.
Another situation in which the Palm computer has proven to be a formidable tool in the courthouse is when I need to do legal research on-the-fly. It has happened to all litigators at some point. During your legal argument, your opponent cites a case to the court that was mysteriously omitted from his brief. Because you’re not familiar with the case, you don’t know if quotes from it have been taken out of context or whether the particular case has been criticized or even reversed by other courts. The usual reaction is to frantically try to get someone back at the office to research the case, but this can rarely be accomplished in enough time to be able to successfully argue against the case in court.
With the advent of wireless solutions for the Palm device, it’s now possible to conduct sophisticated real-time legal research anywhere, anytime. The two major providers of online legal research services, Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis, are in the process of expanding their product lines with wireless offerings specifically designed for Palm device users. In this respect, Westlaw is further advanced with its Westlaw Wireless service (at http://www.westlaw.com/wireless), which allows the user to obtain a synopsis and headnotes for a case and to review the full history and citations to the case in real-time.
Lexis-Nexis is not far behind and is currently testing the LEXIS-NEXIS Wireless service (at http://www.lexis-nexis.com/mvp/wireless/), which will allow users to download the complete text of a case or statute and to run the popular Shepard’s case history and citation service. Lexis even promises to make its Daily Opinion Service, which is updated every two hours, available for PDAs, a move that would make wireless legal research every bit as up-to-date as that performed online from a desktop computer.
Although these wireless offerings are in their infancy and the hardware required to use them is certainly not cheap (not to mention the relatively exorbitant service fees), this is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting areas for lawyers to watch for developments in the future.
.H1 At a deposition
For those of you reading this article who aren’t in the legal field, a deposition is a piece of testimony, given under oath by a witness, that is written down or recorded for use in court at a later date.
As most lawyers do, I normally prepare an outline well in advance of a deposition and refine it as the deposition draws near. I use the outline during the deposition as a guide, not a script, to ensure that I cover everything I need to. It’s easy enough to create outlines in your word processor and then convert it into Palm-readable format. However, if you do this, the document will cease to have the features we normally use an outliner for and simply become a static document.
There are several outliners available for the Palm OS, but my favorite is BrainForest from Aportis (at http://store.aportis.com/bfpro.html). The Professional version of BrainForest allows you to create outlines either on your PC or on your Palm device and has great features like collapsible and expandable subsections, the ability to drag and drop text to different parts of your outline, and the ability to create a list from your outline which you can use during the deposition to check-off topics you’ve already covered. These features make BrainForest ideal not only for deposition outlines, but also for drafting legal briefs, oral arguments, and presentations to clients.
An appropriate warning if you intend to use your Palm device to create outlines and check lists is that extensive use of Graffiti, Palm’s handwriting recognition system, can be hazardous to your sanity. If you plan to input a lot of text, your best bet is to get one of the keyboards that have become available for the Palm device. The two most common keyboards on the market are the GoType! Keyboard from LandWare (at http://www.landware.com/gotype/), and the Palm Portable Keyboard from Palm (at http://www.palm.com/products/keyboard/). I prefer the Palm Portable Keyboard because, as the name indicates, it’s very portable. This keyboard, an engineering marvel if you ask me, folds to about the same size as my Palm device and works great. I haven’t had much experience with the GoType!, but it’s significantly less expensive than the Palm offering.
During depositions, disagreements often arise with regard to procedure or points of evidence. For this reason, many of us like to carry reference materials such as applicable rules of procedure and evidence. The rules "handbook" most of us are accustomed to is so bulky that you often have to make a choice between bringing it or other materials you would like to bring to a deposition.
With a Palm device, you can download many reference materials from the Internet for free. For example, I’ve created Palm-readable versions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Federal Trademark Act, the Federal Copyright Act, and the Federal Patent Statutes and have those texts available at my fingertips through my Palm device at all times. These documents are available as free downloads at my firm’s Web site, at http://www.lott-friedland.com/downloads.htm.
.H1 Visiting a client
I often find that taking my laptop when I visit a client is more trouble than it’s worth. First, there’s the inconvenience of having to find the room to set it up and then finding a power outlet so that you don’t have to interrupt anyone when your battery runs down. Next, the mere fact that you may be taking notes on a laptop is distracting and tends to make people feel like you’re not really paying attention to them.
.CALLOUT I often find that taking my laptop when I visit a client is more trouble than it’s worth.
For this reason, unless I expect a marathon session, I normally take notes during meetings using my Palm Portable Keyboard and one of the many available word processors for the Palm platform. Even the built-in memo utility that comes with the Palm device can work.
I also find it useful to bring transcripts of depositions and hearings that may be relevant to discussions with my clients. Using the software I outlined above, it’s a very simple matter to convert a transcript received from a court reporter in ASCII format into a Palm-readable document. Even if you have the paper copies of a transcript, the Palm version is very useful for pinpointing specific sections you’re interested in.
Another document I usually find useful to bring with me, especially when visiting a new client, is a schedule of my firm’s fees. For obvious reasons, I’m always wary of quoting a fee for a service without double-checking our fee schedule. With the Palm device and Documents to Go, I know that I always have the most up-to-date fee schedule loaded and can be confident I won’t quote the wrong fee.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.H1 Conclusion
I hope this article has provided a starting point for many of you who are looking for better ways to use your PDA to manage your legal practice. No doubt, the tips I’ve outlined above have just scratched the surface of what can be achieved by legal professionals with Palm devices.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Lott & Friedland, P.A., visit http://www.lott-friedland.com.
For more information on Documents to Go from DataViz, visit http://www.dataviz.com.
For more information on QuickOffice from Cutting Edge Software, visit http://www.cesinc.com/quickoffice/.
For more information on AportisDoc, visit http://www.aportis.com.
For more information on TealDoc, visit http://www.tealpoint.com.
For more information on DocReader, visit http://www.crosswinds.net/~mpicker0/DocReader/DocReader.htm.
For more information on Westlaw Wireless, visit http://www.westlaw.com/wireless.
For more information on LEXIS-NEXIS Wireless service, visit http://www.lexis-nexis.com/mvp/wireless/.
For more information on BrainForest from Aportis, visit http://store.aportis.com/bfpro.html.
For more information on the GoType! Keyboard from LandWare, visit http://www.landware.com/gotype/.
For more information on the Palm Portable Keyboard from Palm, visit http://www.palm.com/products/keyboard/.
For the article, "The Stowaway Portable Keyboard," by Claire Pieterek in the December 1999 issue of PalmPower Magazine, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199912/stowaway001.html.
For the article, "On the go with the GoType keyboard," by S. Fred Green in the December 1998 issue of PalmPower Magazine, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199812/gotype001.html.
For the article, "Have your Documents To Go," by Michael Compeau in the July 2000 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200007/docs2go001.html.
For Palm-compatible versions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Federal Trademark Act, the Federal Copyright Act, and the Federal Patent Statutes, visit http://www.lott-friedland.com/downloads.htm.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Ury Fischer is an attorney at Lott & Friedland, P.A., an intellectual property law firm located in Coral Gables, FL. Mr. Fischer specializes in patent and trademark litigation and is a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He may be contacted at ufischer@lott-friedland.com or at 305-448-7089.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6ef59
.END_KEEP
