by Andrew Thompson and William Eadie
For attorneys working with iPads, a new app allows you to review federal court filings on PACER. FedCtRecords (Federal District Court Records) is $9.95 and works on both the iPhone and iPad (built for the iPhone). For support and more information check out http://goo.gl/3OPQO
Another handy app is TranscriptPad, which allows you to view and markup text transcript files of a deposition. Notably, you can assign your own codes and then notate sections of the transcript with those codes–so there will be a handy sub-set of passages grouped by “causation,” “injury,” and whatever else you choose. They are color coded and easy to export–by email, in a PDF report, and more. For an in-depth review, see http://goo.gl/KN7ZC
In the not too distant future, Facebook and Google will have the capability of tracking individuals’ locations on a constant basis, through mobile GPS apps and by posting live feeds of both public and private surveillance cameras. How does this type of technology and social sharing affect an individual’s Constitutional right to privacy? These issues and more are explored in Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change, (Brookings Inst. Press 2011). The book, edited by Jeffrey Rosen, a professor at George Washington University Law School, and Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, is a series of interesting and thought-provoking essays by legal and technology experts.
If your practice requires you to research cases decided by the United States Supreme Court, there is no better resource on the web than www.oyez.org. The Oyez Project was developed by Northwestern University students as the first multi-media-based Supreme Court resource, providing case information, current video comments by legal scholars, MP3 audio of oral arguments and case announcements, and historical Court information. The website’s mission is to make the work of the Supreme Court accessible to everyone, through text, images, audio and video.