Around the Blawgosphere: Favorite Android Apps for Lawyers; How One Law Blogger Remembered Pi Digits
Android’s Turn
Attorney at Work’s Joan Feldman knows that despite all the hoopla surrounding the launch of the latest Apple, some lawyers prefer Android-powered devices. She asked some notable android users—including tech bloggers—about their favorite go-to apps.
Nerino Petro, who blogs at Compujurist, cites the Flex T9 Text Input app.”It provides a much better on-screen keyboard than the standard Android keyboard on my Samsung Epic 4G,” he says. “Flex T9 gives me a number of text-entry options, including via the keyboard, Swype, voice and handwriting input.”
FutureLawyer’s Rick Georges likes Scan2pdf, “which uses the phone’s camera to scan a document and send it to the host. It comes back to me as a readable PDF file.”
The Droid Lawyer’s Jeff Taylor is “loving” Picture It Settled’s smartphone app (available for iPhones as well). It tracks the dollar moves in negotiations, the time between the offers and visually extrapolates that data. “It is designed for mediation, but I use it often to track my personal injury settlement negotiations,” Taylor says.
Sasha Mnemonic
In honor of this week’s Pi Day (March 14) Volokh Conspiracy, Emory University law professor Alexander “Sasha” Volokh recalls how 16 years ago he found a way to remember the first 167 digits of pi. He noted in a 1996 press release that scientists generally remember the first 15 digits of pi with this mnemonic: “How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the tough lectures involving quantum mechanics.” The first word has three letters, the second one letter, the third four letters, etc.
“Unfortunately, the 32nd digit after the decimal point is a zero, which has usually nipped this method in the bud,” the press release said. “Even mathematicians don’t know any words with no letters in them.” Volokh however, got around this by expanding the original mnemonic into multiple sentences, and having periods stand in for zeroes. Back in 1996, The Scientist picked up on the release and did a brief story based on the “stream-of-consciousness mnemonic device that would do James Joyce proud,” but did not print the whole mnemonic, which is as follows:
“How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the tough lectures involving quantum mechanics; but we did estimate some digits by making very bad, not accurate, but so greatly efficient tools! In quaintly valuable ways, a dedicated student—I, Volokh, Alexandre—can determine beautiful and curious stuff, O! Smart, gorgeous me! Descartes himself knew wonderful ways that could ascertain it too! Revered, glorious—a wicked dude! Behold an unending number: pi! Thinkers’ ceaseless agonizing produces little, if anything! For this constant, it stops not — just as e, I suppose. Vainly, ancient geometers computed it—a task undoable. Legendre, Adrien Marie: ‘I say pi rational is not!’ Adrien proved this theorem. Therefore, all doubters have made errors. (Everybody that’s Greek.) Today, counting is as bad a problem as years ago, maybe centuries even. Moreover, I do consider that variable x, y, z, wouldn’t much avail. Is constant like i? No, buffoon!”
Form-Sharing
Robert Ambrogi’s Lawsites gave readers a heads-up about a new website that lets lawyers share forms online for virtually no cost. Once a user registers at MyLawDocs.com and uploads at least one of his or her own forms, that user gets unlimited downloads of other forms at the site.
“A few searches of the site revealed a variety of transactional and employment documents, such as asset purchase agreements, real estate sales agreements, employment agreements, leases, and stock purchase agreements,” Ambrogi wrote. “Among other documents I found were website terms and conditions, model bylaws, a model proxy statement, a limited partnership agreement, and model audit committee letters. I did not download any documents.”
Ambrogi also notes that MyLawDocs.com is not the first site to have this premise: In 2009, Ambrogi noted the launch of ExampleMotion, which also lets users share (or sell) legal forms.
Gorilla Marketing
Lubbock, Texas, personal injury lawyer Davis W. Smith acquired the nickname “gorilla” from his Jiu-Jitsu buddies, Tex Parte Blog notes. Eventually, he incorporated it into the marketing of his practice, featuring an animated gorilla in his TV ads, placing a 4,000-pound concrete gorilla statue in front of his office and adopting the slogan: “Get the Gorilla.” Tex Parte says that according to the USPTO website, Smith applied for registration of the service mark “Injured? Get the Gorilla” in March of last year, and the USPTO issued a notice of allowance for the mark on Jan. 10.
“I think the whole gorilla thing makes the practice of law a lot more fun,” Smith told Tex Parte.
