iPad : A lawyer's client and professional development friend

If your husband or wife is asking you what you want for Christmas, or you’re buying your own present, consider an iPad. It may be the single best client and professional development resource at your disposal – whether you’re a techie or a luddite.

I bought an iPad the minute they came out. As a publisher, I needed to see how the iPad would revolutionize how we consume content. I had a hunch it would.

Truth be told my iPad was cool for an hour or two. It then found its way into my middle dresser drawer where it remained for a couple months.

But when other folks started telling me how great their iPad was, I went back for another look. When people tell me something has big value for them, even if I don’t see it, I know there’s something there. Happened with Twitter, and now it’s happened with the iPad.

My iPad has become part of my daily routine. And it’s become a critical part of my client and professional development work.

How?

• Rather than my laptop, I carry my iPad to client and prospective client meetings. I make my notes on the Pages app and send them to myself by email. Having a browser in my leather folder like iPad case comes in darn handy as well.
• Reeder app on my iPad for my RSS feeds. I subscribe to feeds and manage them at Google Reader. Reeder syncs with Google Reader in seconds each time I open Reeder. I then read and share my feeds (Twitter, Facebook, email, Delicious) from an interface which beats Google Reader or other desktop RSS readers all to heck.
• I read as many business books as I have time for. My Kindle app on my iPad allows me to find and buy books in a few minutes, even while browsing an airport bookstore. I’ve come to really enjoy reading books on my my iPad which allows me to highlight sections and make notes. I’m not carrying 3 or 4 books on road trips any longer either.
• Magazines and newspapers (NY Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Economist, Wall Street Journal) are a far, far superior read on an iPad than on a browser – and arguably better than paper copy as well. You can’t cut and clip an article and share it with a hundred friends like you can with the share feature that iPad newspaper and magazine apps allow for.
• Flipboard, a social magazine application which allows you to create your own magazines from information shared by people and sources you follow, got a whole lot more interesting last week when it began allowing your Google Reader feeds to be displayed as a ‘magazine’ with pictures. I started using Flipboard to read my RSS feeds and share selected ones on Twitter over the weekend. I enjoyed it. We may have a winner here in getting more lawyers to use RSS.

I’m not drawn to cool technology for technology’s sake. I’m drawn to technology as a learning and social tool. Social primarily for business and professional development networking.

My iPad has become a wonderful client and professional development tool. As a lawyer, you could do a lot worse than getting an iPad for your learning and networking.