For starters, let’s take a look at the industry as a whole. How many legal applications do we have now in Africa?
Now let’s take a look at the most well-known mobile applications, and calendar applications for lawyers. It is said there are plenty of great options to choose from. But first, let’s make it clear why the world needs both – calendar applications and legal mobile applications.
Generally speaking, each of these technologies can serve the needs of lawyers and users who have nothing to do with the legal profession.
However, as experience confirms times and times again, mobile applications are getting increasingly popular among lawyers, while legal calendar applications gain the popularity of end customers. Depending on your business goal, you can choose to create one or another.
A calendar application enables you to schedule meetings and appointments. All you need to do is input the date and time of the meeting or appointment and how early you wish to be reminded and the application will setup a reminder.
With a properly setup schedule on your calendar application, missing deadlines will be in your past. It will also ensure you never show up late for meetings and appointments with clients coming to your firm.
As an attorney, making a good first impression matters a lot. This is because a calendar application will help you organize your workflow as a lawyer and help you become more productive with clients.
It eliminates the likelihood and outcome of scheduling two appointments at the same time, which means you have to choose one and stall the other client.
Image personality is a very big priority for an attorney, showing up late for an appointment (or even for a court date) won’t do any favors to your image and can even result in you losing your prestige, integrity and clients.This is where a good calendar application becomes the order of the day.
I’ve got a lot of lawyers as friends and very good one i must say, they are very smart, intelligent, and kind.
While most people are not taking note of the fact that for the first time in Nigeria and Africa at large the new generation lawyers are filled with integrity and transparency.
With a firm desire to move the country forward and shaping the justice system to a more accountable and dependable institution.
TOP CALENDAR APPLICATIONS FOR LAWYERS
1. GOOGLE CALENDAR
The Google Calendar is a more focused calendar application. It syncs with Gmail making it easy to add events and schedule fixed appointments.
With the Google Calendar, if there is a situation where by your client sends you an email for an appointment or a court date is sent to you via email, the dates become clickable making it one click away to adding them to your schedule.
The application is preinstalled in Android devices and available for download on the app store for iOS devices. It can be integrated to many other applications (especially productivity applications) just like Calendar.AI App, making it a must have for every attorney.
2. TIME PAGE
A company popularly and better known for notebooks, Time page application offers beautiful calendar view. The iOS exclusive application also makes for easy and fast event entry. You get split-screen support on iPad. And a time point reminder always.
3. OFFICE 365 CALENDAR(OUTLOOK)
This calendar Application is built from the ground up for businesses. One great benefit of Office 365 is that it syncs across multiple devices, from mobile phones to tablets and Personal Computers (PC).
This means you can add an appointment to the calendar on your work computer in the office and access your entries on your smartphone while on the move. Pretty awesome right !! hell yeah.
This is another versatile calendar application and just like Google Calendar APP can integrate to numerous other productivity apps, including Calendar.AI.
Outlook calendar is very effective for Law firms as all public calendar entries can be visible to all making it easier to efficiently allocate resources.
4. CALENDAR .AI
The calendar.Ai is a smart calendar application that syncs with both Google Calendar and Office 365 Calendar (Outlook) and can present insights on people and companies you are going to meet before the meeting. Some pro-active feature if you ask me.
The fact that, you are not only getting reminded of your meeting and appointment, you can also get information about the people or companies you are meeting with.
This additional and beautiful feature makes you display the best first impression and look more proactive, which is invaluable for a lawyer. This ensures you make every meeting count and on point.
Calendar.AI provides you with useful insights about the people and companies you are scheduling meetings with. The insights are pulled from sources like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and viewable directly in the Calendar application.
To keep things simple, you can add an agenda to the calendar. And you can also make private notes as well as add meeting minutes into the Application for references.
In a scenario where by, a video conference meeting is preferred by your client, Calendar.AI integrates seamlessly with Zoom Meetings, GoToMeeting, Webex, and Skype for Business. Such flexibility, can make you a preferred attorney for clients on a more regular basis.
Calendar.AI is currently available on the google play store for download.
The application also integrates well with scheduling applications like calendly, Doodle, X.ai, Acuity Scheduling, and Set more Appointments. The weather information is also provided by the calendar.Ai application.
5. ACCOMPANY
The Accompany application is very similar to Calendar.AI. Once you schedule a meeting with anyone on the app, it collects relevant information about them and their company and presents them within the application for cross checks and reference purposes suitable for lawyers.
This amazing feature, makes it a great solution for lawyers as it ensures you are always prepared before meeting clients. Accompany is only available for iOS devices.
As i write this article for your reading pleasure i want you to act on one of the important details i will suggest to you now because by the end of this article, you’ll realize two things.
The first is that you no longer need to pay for a lawyer if you’ve got some kind of a trivial legal problem.
The second one is that it might be an exceptionally good idea to create a legal application of your own if you run a law firm. Thus you’ll not only help people with legal advice but also make money on that and improve your public image. Isn’t it enough motivation to read this article from top to bottom? it certainly is.
TOP LEGAL MOBILE APPLICATIONS FOR LAWYERS
1. FASTCASE
This application is available for both Android and iOS users, the FastCase is a popular legal application putting the entire American law library in your pocket.
There are statutes and detailed cases from all 50 states. Users of this application can search by statute collection or keywords and citations. Thanks to the algorithm, the application suggests the most relevant results first and lets you jump right to the most relevant part of any case in only one click.
The application if free, but there is an option of premium accounts with a full FastCase subscription. Thanks to this application, lawyers can now enjoy a last-minute legal research without the need of using a laptop or library.
2. NOTARYCAM
Praised for its security, fraud prevention and convenience, A popular online notary service NotaryCam lets lawyers get their documents legally and securely notarized in all 50 U.S. states this can be applicable in Nigeria and Africa at large.
The app is currently available for iOS devices and provides notary services on demand, anytime and anywhere.
Online notary services from NotaryCam are made through a professional network of certified notaries who create digital versions of documents that need to be notarized. Further by means of a webcam that’s connected to the application lawyers verify their identity and electronically sign their documents themselves.
3. CAMSCANNER
Although this application can be useful for many other categories of people apart from lawyers, it is especially popular among the latter.
Thanks to CamScanner, one can scan documents or hand written notes and convert them into PDF images. Given that legal professionals tend to make hundreds of written notes per day, this application can save them a lot of time.
4. ILEGAL LEGISLATION
This is kinda funny, the founder of this application calls it the law in your pocket, and iLegal Legislation delivers on its promise. Thanks to this application, you can access the revised and updated texts of all British primary legislation and Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain.
There is a 7-day trial period during which a lawyer can test the application and purchase either an annual or a lifetime subscription.
The list of features includes but is not limited to on-the-fly updates, bookmarks, browser searching by title, year, and keywords.
5. ON THE CASE
Another example of a great legal application is ‘On the Case’ by Lexis Library. This application works just great if a lawyer needs an immediate recap on a certain case or wants to browse it by topic. One of the best things about this application is that it guides lawyers towards good law by indicating how the court has treated a certain case in the past and to produce better judgement in the coming case.
6. TALKS ON LAW
Available for Apple IOS users for free, The talks On Law application is exactly what it sounds like. The idea behind this application is to provide legal professionals with interesting content that is both educational and entertaining at the same time.
This means with plenty of great features such as filters by topic, credit category, and date or search by speakers and tags, it becomes possible to learn new things about law while having fun. After all, lawyers need some rest too. On point.
SOME FEATURES TO INCLUDE IN LAW APPLICATIONS
At this stage, if you as a lawyer has decided to create a law application for your firm. Then you are in the right place at the right time. Here are some features to include while creating your apps. As features differs depending on a specific purpose that you as the developer wants.
NOTES AND HIGHLIGHTS
It’s important for lawyers to be able to make notes and highlight certain paragraphs in legal texts. Make sure to include this simple feature in your legal application.
SCAN OF PAPER DOCUMENTS AND HANDWRITTEN NOTES
Any legal practice requires a lot of paperwork. It is important for users to be able to scan and convert documents into PDF via the smartphone camera.
SEARCH BY KEYWORDS, DATES, AND CASES
It’s safe to say that the more search criteria can be applied the better. Time is money, and it is especially true for lawyers, that’s why they would benefit from a user-friendly and smart search tool.
CREATE AND MANAGE FOLDERS
In nearly all the cases, circumstances force lawyers to work on a number of cases simultaneously. To help them keep things organized, it would be a smart idea to include a feature with tags and folders. some very good tip. “i know right”.
ACCESS TO LAW LIBARY AND SPECIFIC CASES
The majority of lawyers refer to law books when in doubt. That’s why it is important to give them access to all legislation and acts they might need. lawyers love it when you are proactive, make your app a proactive one and the lawyers will troll in and maybe recommend your law firm too.
