Useful Apps for Lawyers in 2016

Are your 2016 New Year’s resolutions stating to flag? Are all those good intentions for doing things differently at work rapidly disintegrating into the ether, as you wrestle with the same old issues that got you so frustrated and worn down by the end of last year?

If you’re anything like me, new years’ resolutions that don’t make an immediate difference to your life rarely stick around past February….but, if you’re a lawyer – either new to the profession or long in the tooth - deciding to get to grips with some relevant and time-saving apps now available on your mobile or tablet – might be a resolution worth making for 2016…

And the reason? Because as we hurtle toward 2020, the breadth of free applications now on offer to help lawyers and law firms save time, work smarter and therefore serve clients more effectively has never been greater…

So, to point you in the right direction, here are my current top five android apps for legal professionals. (I'll be reviewing apps available to iphone and ipad users in a future post).

1. smartLEGES

For lawyers working across borders - smartLEGES offers a powerful law reader containing a comprehensive database of legislation from fifteen countries including the UK, USA, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, and India. You don’t need to be connected to the internet to do some reading. And if you’re worried about getting eyestrain because of tiny letters, you have the option to change the font size of the reader as well as the font’s colour, background colour and screen brightness.

2. Voice Recorder

For those client meetings that are just too complicated or demanding to be able to take accurate notes and you don’t have access to a trainee to take them for you, the Voice Recorder app ensures that you don’t miss any crucial details. Voice Recorder allows you to send the recorded file as an attachment via Gmail so you can listen to it on a computer, allows you to save a bunch of recordings by title and date, and, if you’re aiming to be discreet, you can pre-program a time for when you want Voice Recorder to start recording.

3. Documents To Go

If you’re a lawyer on the go who regularly needs instant access to important documents in clients’ files then the Documents To Go app, may be a great addition to your smart phone repertoire. Using this free app you can view any documents generated using Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint, in both older .doc formats and newer .docx formats. If you’d like to edit and create documents on the go in those formats, then you have the option to purchase the full version, which supports password protected Word and Excel files, and provides file transfers from your phone to your computer using Documents To Go’s desktop app. 

 4. Scan2PDF

Again for lawyers on the move, Scan2PDF is like having a scanner, photocopier and a fax machine all packaged neatly into your back pocket or hand-bag. Using your phone’s camera to take a picture copy, you can convert one or more pages of an important document into a single, compressed and enhanced PDF for easier browsing later. The PDFs are also saved to your phone’s SD Card, giving you the option to e-mail them to yourself, a client, a colleague or to download later to a computer.

5. New and Improved LinkedIn App

Finally, any review of useful mobile/tablet applications for lawyers has to include the new LinkedIn App – available for both android and iOS devices.

For time poor lawyers, any technology that can help make the most of their time out of the office meeting with clients or prospects, has to be of interest. That said, a useful new feature offered by the redesigned LinkedIn App now allows members to filter a search for potential clients or referrers by location. So if you have a meeting already confirmed in one city, you can set up other meetings in the same city very easily.  

For a step by step guide on how to use this feature – see my colleague, Emily Miller’s recent post on the new LinkedIn App here.

Though I wouldn’t claim to be an expert user of the first four applications suggested above, I do train lawyers on how to use LinkedIn to stand out from their competitors and use it as an effective tool for business development and marketing activities. If you would like to find out how LinkedIn could help grow your practice, I’d love to hear from you.