TechnoLawyer: Presentations/Projectors

Today's TL NewsWire Hot Product is the first cloud-based timeline creation and case document storage software designed for the legal profession (see article below). In addition, you'll find links to many previous TL NewsWire Hot Products, including cloud practice management software designed to get your firm up and running quickly while also offering a seamless path to more advanced functionality when needed. Don't miss the next issue of TL NewsWire.

Time plays a critical role in many criminal and civil cases. Therefore, displaying key events on a timeline is essential for depositions, settlement conferences, and trials — not to mention for your own analysis of the facts. Most legal timeline software remains bound to your PC, but a new timeline product runs in the cloud.

TrialLine in One Sentence

Law Father's TrialLine is cloud-based timeline creation software for lawyers that includes digital case document storage.

The Killer Feature

Travis Luther's wife needed to create timelines for her law practice but could not find a modern web app. So Luther, Law Father's founder and president, created a simple app for her. Other lawyers began asking for access. Sensing a market need, Luther spent several years developing TrialLine. Users of the software like it so much they refer to their timelines as "TrialLines."

Luther realized that lawyers need more than one timeline view so TrialLine offers four — Relative, Carousel, Slide, and List.

Relative View shows events in a temporally precise manner (the time distance between events), making it suitable for demonstrative evidence. TrialLine offers granularity down to the second so you can use it for injuries and other split-second incidents.

Carousel View displays events side-by-side in equal succession, while Slide View blows up events to consume the full screen similar to a PowerPoint presentation. List View offers a text specific spreadsheet-like experience that enables you to sort and filter by columns and isolate select events related to an issue of law or those that may require review by an expert witness. You can save various searches and views for later reference.

TrialLine offers two export options — export the Carousel View in a high-quality PNG image format for poster board printing or export your data in Word or Excel documents for full or category-specific case summaries.

"I discovered TrialLine while preparing an employment retaliation case for trial," says Sam Cannon, founder of Cannon Law. "Using TrialLine really helped us visualize the temporal relationship between my client's protected reports of sexual harassment to the retaliatory acts. In addition, by adding the defendant's pretextual justifications for its adverse actions as separate categories, we could display the lack of a temporal relationship between them and the adverse actions. This helped us simplify the trial."

Other Notable Features

TrialLine's event creation tool includes fields for the date and time, case-specific categories, Bates numbers, Exhibit numbers, professional providers, bills, text descriptions, and tags. You can also upload corresponding documents and videos and attach them to specific events. Your TrialLines display symbols on events to let you know they have associated categories and files.

As a case progresses, you and your colleagues can collaborate and append notes and comments to events. Additionally, "TrialLines can be easily shared online with clients and experts, allowing them to monitor case progress and contribute new or requested information," says Luther. Sharing occurs via a link in an email message. TrialLine displays all sharing history on one page, enabling you to easily revoke access.

What Else Should You Know?

For one user, TrialLine costs $9.99 per month for the software plus $9.99 per case per month for the document storage. Larger teams receive a discount (see the pricing page). The ability to store the entire case file in a HIPPA-compliant manner eliminates the need to use a digital archive provider like Iron Mountain. TrialLine splits the software and storage fee so that you can recover the latter from clients. Explore TrialLine and bookmark the website.

About TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. Each week, TL NewsWire reports on the hottest new products for lawyers and law office administrators. The innovative structure of TL NewsWire articles enable you to quickly understand each product's value proposition, and then zero in on its killer feature and other notable attributes. In each issue, you can easily revisit our back catalog of articles and the most recent TL NewsWire Top 25 Products Awards. Subscribe to TL NewsWire.

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Neil Squillante, First Look at Slidebean

Thomas RuBane, Lawyers, Ethereum, and the Blockchain

Mike Brem, iPad a Consumption Device, Not a Creation Device

Ron Kovach, Amicus Attorney Small Firm Quandary

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

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Coming today to LitigationWorld: The days of deciding whether or not to use trial presentation softare have ended. Instead, you now face a potentially tougher choice — which of the many apps to use. We asked nine experts — Ken Broda-Bahm, Ted Brooks, Russell Cardon, Mitch Jackson, Karen Koehler, Ian O'Flaherty, Timothy Piganelli, Jeff Richardson, and Thomas Vidal — to share their experiences and insights in this issue of LitigationWorld. Also, don't miss the LitigationWorld Pick of the Week for the secret to writing a winning brief when no one reads it.

How to Receive LitigationWorld
All practice areas evolve, but none faster than litigation. Written by successful litigators and other litigation experts, LitigationWorld provides you with practical tips related to electronic discovery, depositions, litigation strategy, litigation technology, and trial presentations. LitigationWorld also features in-depth litigation product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings, as well as links to the most noteworthy litigation articles in other publications so that you'll never miss anything. The LitigationWorld newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Neil Squillante, On The Road With The IPad Pro And No Laptop Safety Net

Bill Moritz, How To Export PCLaw Bills To Excel Format

Caren Schwartz, Options For Exporting PCLaw Bills To Excel Format

Donald Coker, Tip: Tabs3 Can Export Bills In Excel Format

Nancy Duhon, Tip: Timeslips Can Export Bills In Excel Format

Bryan Sims, Tip: Use Power PDF Advanced To Convert PDF Bills Into Excel

Tatiana Melnik, Tip: Use Acrobat To Convert PDF Bills Into Excel Format

Paul Billings, Time59 Excel Export Options

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Serendipity
Our most serendipitous offering (hence its name), TL Serendipity consists of contributions by TechnoLawyer members who have important information to share. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The TL Serendipity newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to LitigationWorld: Meet Brian Beckcom, a lawyer living and litigating in the future. His Tesla Model S underscores his philosophy — embrace what's new to see if it's better than the status quo. To this end, Beckcom has moved beyond laptops, internal email, and Windows software — Microsoft Word in particular. He also takes pleasure from battling big companies and even Hollywood. In this issue of LitigationWorld, we take you inside Beckcom's litigation practice at Houston-based VB Attorneys. Also, don't miss the LitigationWorld Pick of the Week for one of the first court opinions on Amended FRCP 26.

How to Receive LitigationWorld
All practice areas evolve, but none faster than litigation. Written by successful litigators and other litigation experts, LitigationWorld provides you with practical tips related to electronic discovery, depositions, litigation strategy, litigation technology, and trial presentations. LitigationWorld also features in-depth litigation product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings, as well as links to the most noteworthy litigation articles in other publications so that you'll never miss anything. The LitigationWorld newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected the 47 best legal technology articles, podcasts, and videos from the past week. Below you'll find a sampling from today's issue, including our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week. BlawgWorld is free so don't miss the next issue — sign up now.

Congratulations to Jeff Richardson of iPhone J.D. on winning our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award: Review of iClever Ultra Slim 3 Bluetooth Keyboard

Creating New Styles in Microsoft Word

Lawyer David Sparks' MindNode Screencasts

The Best iPad Pro Keyboard Cases (So Far)

iPad Unfinished Business

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Coming today to BlawgWorld: Our editorial team has selected the 50 best legal technology articles, podcasts, and videos from the past week. Below you'll find a sampling from today's issue, including our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week. BlawgWorld is free so don't miss the next issue — sign up now.

Congratulations to Sascha Segan of PCMag.com on winning our BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award: Fastest Mobile Networks (2016)

Firm Manager 2.0 Broadens Its Appeal to Larger Small Firms

How to Add Real-Time Audience Responses to a PowerPoint Presentation

The Best Laptops of 2016

Five Mobile Dropbox Features You Need to Try

YouTube for Software Training

Fastcase 50 2016 Winners

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Today's issue of TL Serendipity contains these articles:

Neil Squillante, Abacus Data Systems CEO Alessandra Lezama On The Amicus Attorney Acquisition And Industry Consolidation

Neil Squillante, Review Of The 9.7-Inch IPad Pro For Presentations

Joshua Gordon, Review: Retrospect + Carbonite

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Our most serendipitous offering (hence its name), TL Serendipity consists of contributions by TechnoLawyer members who have important information to share. You'll no doubt enjoy it because of its mix of interesting topics and genuinely useful knowledge, including brutally honest product reviews and informative how-tos. The TL Serendipity newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers an iPad app for trial presentations with special support for the iPad Pro (see article below), a free virtual private network for iOS, an intelligent email assistant, and a multi-platform database. Don't miss the next issue.

Tech savvy lawyers have debated for years whether the iPad can replace a laptop. It turns out that real life is not mutually exclusive. The iPad performs certain tasks better than a PC and vice versa. Many lawyers now own multiple devices, and use the best tool for a given job. For trial presentations, many lawyers swear by the iPad.

TrialPad 4.5 … in One Sentence

Launching today, LIT SOFTWARE's TrialPad 4.5 is a popular trial presentation app for the iPad.

The Killer Feature

The new version of TrialPad leverages the size and resolution of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, enabling you to preview and annotate documents more easily, and view longer file names without truncation. TrialPad also supports the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil. For example, you can use the Command-F key combination on the Smart Keyboard to start a search, and use the Apple Pencil to more precisely create callouts and annotations.

TrialPad creator Ian O'Flaherty also runs a trial presentation company. When he first launched TrialPad in 2010, O'Flaherty targeted smaller, less document intensive trials. "This is no longer the case," he tells us. "TrialPad 4.5 on an iPad Pro is faster and more versatile than Windows software even in complex trials. And it also remains the best choice for do-it-yourself trials without a consultant like me."

Other Notable Features

TrialPad's new Snapshot tool enables you to capture annotations and callouts exactly the way you want to present them. TrialPad saves Snapshots as PDFs in their own folder for quick access. You can email, print, or upload them to cloud storage. The Snapshot tool works whether you're displaying just one document or two documents side by side in Split Screen mode.

To go along with the new Snapshot tool, TrialPad offers improved annotation tools. The Pen tool snaps to 90-degree angles when using the straight line option. When a highlight overlaps an earlier highlight, the intersecting highlights don't get darker but instead remain transparent and readable. A long press on any tool reveals additional options.

The new version of TrialPad also makes it easier to prep exhibits. You can add exhibit stickers in bulk, and even replace previous exhibit stickers if necessary. If you use LIT SOFTWARE's DocReviewPad for document review and production, you can move selected documents into TrialPad organized by issue code.

When it's time to go live, TrialPad tries to prevent human error. When Output is switched off, the Blank, Freeze, and Present buttons remain visible but grayed out. Similarly, Apple's Split View is disabled to prevent accidentally showing another app such as your email or an outline.

What Else Should You Know?

LIT SOFTWARE has taken advantage of new Apple technologies, resulting in an improved full-screen mode, faster PDF rendering, smoother zooming, and use of iTunes for backup and transferring cases between iPads. A new training mode shows your fingers as round dots on an external display. TrialPad 4.5 costs $129.99 (it's a free update for users of TrialPad 4 and later). Learn more about TrialPad 4.5.

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Originally published in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

With this week's announcement of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, Apple's current iPad line-up is both its best ever but also its most complex. In this issue of SmallLaw, TechnoLawyer publisher and iPad expert Neil Squillante helps you sort through the options by identifying the best iPad for each of six common lawyer use cases. Neil also recommends accessories and cases for the well-appointed lawyer. Also, don't miss the SmallLaw Pick of the Week (newsletter only) for three auto-attendant irritations to avoid.

With this week's announcement of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, Apple's current iPad line-up is both its best ever but also its most complex. In addition, Apple now offers two professional accessories — Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. In this issue of SmallLaw, I'll steer you to the best iPad and accessories for your law practice.

The Big Picture

Apple currently sells five iPad models in three sizes. However, the iPad mini 2 shipped in 2013 and tops out at 32 GB of storage. Skip that one. This leaves four contenders. Here's how the other models stack up:

• iPad Pro 12.9-Inch (2015): $799 to $1,229
• iPad Pro 9.7-Inch (2016): $599 to $1,029
• iPad Air 2 (2014): $399 to $629
• iPad mini 4 (2015): $399 to $729

Below I explain the key differences among these iPads using common use cases.

You Want to Take Handwritten Notes

In 2012, I was enthusiastic about note-taking on the iPad but never found a stylus worth a damn. Note-taking was more aspirational than reality back then. But by all accounts, the Apple Pencil is the real deal for handwritten notes. The Apple Pencil works only with the two iPad Pro models. You'll just need to figure out which size you want.

You Expect to Read a Lot

What kind of reading?

For letter-size documents (PDF, Word, etc.), go with the iPad Pro or iPad Air 2. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is pretty much the same size as a piece of letter-size paper. However, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro is the only model with a True Tone display — ambient light sensors that adapt the display to your environment to make the screen resemble paper as much as possible.

As much as I love the iPad mini, it's suboptimal for PDF and other letter-size documents. But because of its size and weight it shines for reading ebooks, email, Twitter, Facebook, and web pages in Reader mode or saved to Instapaper or Pocket.

You Live in Dropbox (Or a Competitor)

iPads last a long time. The one purchasing decision that can haunt you is scrimping on storage since you cannot expand it. Storage is especially important if you have already replaced or plan to replace your network file server with a cloud storage service such as Dropbox. While Dropbox doesn't immediately download all files to your iPad as is the case on a PC, over time you'll download plenty so it'll add up.

Only the iPad Pro models offer 256 GB. These also come in a 128 GB capacity as does the iPad mini 4. Avoid the iPad Air 2 if you need a lot of storage as it tops out at 64 GB.

You Want to Give Trial Presentations

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro seems like the only reasonable option for the demands of a trial. You get a lot of screen real estate that you can split between two apps such as your outline and a deposition transcript. The 4 GB of memory makes it less likely that apps will have to reload (the other iPad models have just 2 GB). You can connect a full-size keyboard case that doesn't require batteries thanks to the Smart Connector. The pricier iPad Pro models offer enough storage (see above) to hold a lot of exhibits and videos.

The only wrinkle is that TrialPad (the leading trial presentation app by most accounts) doesn't yet support the 12.9-inch iPad Pro's native screen resolution (it works but is a little enlarged) or iOS 9 split screen multitasking. Lit Software CEO Ian O'Flaherty told me today that support for the iPad Pro's resolution will arrive in April, but there's no timetable for split screen support.

O'Flaherty added that the company's other litigation apps — DocReviewPad and TranscriptPad — support the 12.9-inch iPad Pro's native resolution.

You Want a Laptop Replacement

I have to include the elephant in the room, especially since the answer is a little more complex than it was a week ago. Clearly, you want an iPad Pro equipped a keyboard case and perhaps the Apple Pencil. But now that two sizes of iPad Pro exist, you need to determine how much you value screen size versus portability. (What about Microsoft's Surface Book and Surface Pro? That's a different article.)

You Want a TV and Stereo in the Office

Ironically, the abundance of media apps available for the iPad has been under-reported. Armed with your cable TV login, you can live stream Bloomberg TV, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, and of course many of the entertainment networks. Likewise, you can stream virtually any radio station via TuneIn Radio and music via Apple Music, Google Play Music, Prime Music, Spotify, etc.

Sure your iPhone can run these apps if you don't mind squinting. And sure you can use your browser in most cases as long as you don't mistakenly close the tab. Regarding sound, both of the iPad Pro models have four speakers that play in stereo in landscape and portrait orientation. But if you're only going to use your iPad as an entertainment device and especially if you use headphones most of the time, the iPad Air 2 will save you money.

You Want to Look Sharp

All the iPads look sharp but that's not the whole story. I've become a big fan of Sena cases. The company works exclusively with leather, and is one of the few case makers that sells sleeves for those who prefer using their iPad naked and need protection only for transport.

Sena's most versatile case is the Vettra 360. It can prop up your iPad in landscape and portrait orientation thanks to a swivel mechanism, and contains a loop for securely carrying the Apple Pencil.

Apple's Smart Keyboard for the iPad Pro changes your case calculus. It doubles as a case but protects only the screen. I recommend marrying this keyboard case with Apple's Smart Case in the same gray color (or hey maybe go two tone) to protect the back of the iPad. Yes it's shocking that Apple would make these two separate purchases work so well together.

Hope You Like Your New iPad

If you buy a new iPad, reply and let us know which model and how you use it — and whether you disagree with any of my advice.

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