Will the iPad be a super co-star at your next deposition?
Friday, August 26th, 2011
We were intrigued by news that a national law firm supplied their attorneys with iPads loaded with the GoodReader app. Then we read that an Arizona firm gave their clients iPads to improve client-attorney contact and interaction. With these moves in mind, we wanted to find the best ways to use the iPad 2 with your next Hahn & Bowersock deposition. Could the 1.5 pound iPad take the place of all those banker’s boxes? Maybe . . . see what you think.
Zagg keyboard
We love timesaving gadgets, so we popped our iPad into a Bluetooth-connected Zagg portable keyboard. In seconds, we were typing as easily as on a laptop. Touch screens are great—except for serious typing. The $99 Zagg keyboard solves that problem beautifully.
Web depositions
Attend and participate in H&B web depositions from your iPad. Joining a web deposition session is quick and easy. You can view participants in the bottom carousal and attend via iPad cam and Skype or your own phone. It’s easy to see exhibits and view and interact with the witness. The private and group chat worked without a hitch. Picture and sound clarity were perfect. Want to include your client, expert or co-counsel? Invite them to attend by laptop, iPad, iPhone or desktop. And as an added bonus, we can stream the Realtime deposition on your iPad during the web deposition.
H&B Office
Our convenient app for iPhone and iPad gives you easy access to H&B Office, where you can view transcripts and digital exhibits, check your deposition schedule and calendar for the month, and follow Google Maps to your depo location.
Dropbox
This absolutely essential app lets you organize case documents and transcripts in one location that’s easily accessible from multiple iPad apps. Store photographs, videos, transcripts, notes and anything else related to a case, and Dropbox will synch them to all of your computers with instant updates. From Dropbox, you can download transcript, exhibits and case documents into the GoodReader, iAnnotate and Deponent apps.
Getting documents into these apps is simple and fast. From the iPad, we went to hahnbowersock.com and clicked on online access. After logging in to H&B Office and H&B eDocs, we easily found the documents we needed and moved them to Dropbox and GoodReader. For Goodreader, we downloaded documents by simply placing a “g” in front of the URL.
GoodReader
This app makes it easy to organize and access all kinds of case documents in one location. We downloaded our transcripts, exhibits and case documents into case files, where we were able annotate exhibits and transcripts for review. During a deposition, you can hand your iPad to a witness, who can view the exhibit—and even annotate it with a finger or stylus. You can take a screen shot of the annotated exhibit and email the image to the court reporter for marking. GoodReader also makes it easy to bring in and refer to earlier, fully annotated depositions.
iAnnotate
We downloaded regular and condensed PDFs of transcripts and were able to easily annotate and add notes. Exhibits in iAnnotate are easy for witnesses to mark on—and the marked image can be captured, saved and attached to the deposition.
Google Maps
You can use this app—which comes preloaded onto your iPad—to create a detailed accident scene photo. Search for the physical location of the accident, click on bird’s eye view, rotate the picture to pinpoint the exact location of the accident, then capture the photo by clicking the on/off button and the bottom center button at the same time. The image is saved in your photos file. From there, you can move the photo into the Adobe Ideas app or your Good Reader app and let the witness annotate the exact location on the photo. Save the photo with annotations and email it to the court reporter to mark. It all works perfectly and easily.
DocScanner
No photocopier handy? Not a problem. Snap a photo of any document with DocScanner, and it creates a fully searchable pdf, text or doc file you can send to your email account or upload to Dropbox, iAnnotate or other apps to review later.
LawBox
If you need to access a California or federal code, this free app makes it fast and easy. There are many more good apps in this category that put code sections at your fingertips.
Deponent
This app is a valuable tool in prepping for depositions—you can organize questions, link questions with exhibit images to create a deposition outline and enter notes during the deposition.
Zite
Need to monitor the latest events in the legal world? Zite captures articles from newspapers and magazines based on your customized interests so you can catch up during deposition breaks. And don’t forget The American Lawyer app for the current and past articles.
Angry Birds
Even the most serious iPad user needs a little stress relief. This addictive app is perfect!
We look forward to hearing about how you’re using the iPad 2 for depositions and case management. Drop us a line at ipadapps@hahnbowersock.net.
If you’re interested in learning about these apps and more, call us for a webinar or lunch demonstration—projected through our iPad 2!
