iPad in Trial with PadNote

We have ordered our Apple iPads for TechnoEsq Presentations as well as our personal iPad and besides being extremely excited we are already seeing the first iPad app a lawyer can use at trial. First seen on 9to5mac.com, PadNote looks like it was created for simple drawing at first, but it turns out to be quite useful since it allows annotations on PDF’s.

It works by allowing the user to open a pdf and make it the “background” of a drawing. Once the pdf is opened into the program, it is placed into a document manager and may be called up any time for annotation. From the short video introduction show below (cheesy music not ours, highlighting begins midway through), we can see that users can highlight in any color, draw onto the PDF and type notes just as if the file was opened in Acrobat on a computer except instead of using a mouse, you use the touchscreen of the iPad.

This truly is the solo-practitioner’s dream for a trial presentation machine since the iPad has a VGA connector accessory which mirrors the iPad’s screen to a projector. Thus using this app, an attorney could open a medical record or other document, display it on the screen for the jury and, using his finger, highlight, draw and otherwise annotate the document. Since the annotations are not permanent but exist on a ‘layer’ above the pdf, they can be turned on and off with the push of an icon at the top of the screen. The days of having an assistant at counsel’s table trying to figure out where a attorney wants to highlight or zoom on a document with Sanction or Trial Director are over. Give me an iPad and an projector and I am suddenly a self-contained trial machine.

Unfortunately, our iPads will not arrive until April 3. Check back then for hands-on videos.

Unnnnngh

or you can use a tablet computer like the lenovo x200 and projector and then you have a useful computer as well *ding ding ding*
http://technoesqpresentations.com finis33

I don't think you can walk around with a notebook or put one on the podium effectively.
Stephen Chakwin

I just ran into this post and liked the look of the app both here and on the longer video on YouTube. Unfortunately, when I went to the App Store and bought it, what I got was a very different beast. The different kinds of annotation functionality – highlighting, annotating – were nowhere to be found. So I got an app that lets me create documents and draw on them and – with an elaborate Kabuki dance – get a PDF into it and then draw lines or circles on it, but it’s a far cry from what the developer showed. So caveat emptor.
As for Finis’s second point, of course you can put an iPad on a lectern effectively. You just need to have it in a case that is “non-skid”. You can use an adaptor to hook it up to a projector and then, as the MacLitigator blog showed , you’re in business with a fine trial setup. Not all the power of a full laptop – you can’t, for example, slide your exhibits from a Circus Ponies Notebook onto the projector screen (set up as a second display), but probably more than enough for ordinary use.
In fairness, Finis wrote his note nine months ago and we’ve learned a lot about using the iPad since…

Stephen