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Eyeing the iPhone?

Apple’s famed smartphone can also be a law practice tool.

“On the weekend, I worked on a closing,” Rob Hyndman recalls. “Documents were sent to me. I reviewed the black-lines, took two or three minutes to compare them to the list of items on my checklist, and fired off a quick note telling everybody I was finished with the document.” Nothing unusual about that, you say? Consider this: Hyndman, a Toronto solo specializing in information technology, managed the entire closing at home on his iPhone.

Yes, that iPhone. Few handsets have hogged as much limelight for as long as Apple Inc.’s first-ever smartphone, featuring PDA-type features, an iPod and a phone all wrapped up in a touch-screen package. Smartphones — primarily BlackBerrys, on which Hyndman notes the foregoing transaction could also have been done  — appeal to mobile lawyers who frequently find themselves on the road visiting clients and don’t want to haul notebook computers with them.

Now, lawyers are starting to learn the pros of the iPhone as a practice tool. Hyndman’s iPhone use mirrors his computer use — it’s just another way to access the applications he uses in the office. Phone and email are only the beginning. Third-party developers offer thousands of extra tools, commonly called apps, for smartphone users. The iPhone developer roster includes names like Cisco, Google, the ABA Journal, LinkedIn.com and the New York Times.

Hyndman is happy to try these applications. “All the apps I’ve installed on the iPhone were two or three dollars, if they weren’t free, and they install in 30 seconds,” he says. “You only spend two or three dollars to explore a new technology.” At the office, Hyndman subscribes to the online file backup service SugarSync. He can also pull files onto his iPhone using SugarSync’s iPhone app.

Minute book records reside in the office, but Hyndman shares an index to those records with a virtual assistant using Google Docs. Google’s iPhone app lets Hyndman review and update that index. Toronto-based FreshBooks contains Hyndman’s billing and timekeeping on their servers, while the iPhone app lets him track and record time spent on specific projects and tasks.

As enthusiastic as Hyndman is about the iPhone, he’s just as blunt about its shortcomings. Inadequate battery life tops the list. “If I use it intensively to access the web, I get two or three hours,” he says. And for some reason, Apple omitted tasks, universal search, copy-and-paste and the ability to type an email while holding the phone on its side.

Regardless, Hyndman speaks bullishly about the iPhone. “It’s a game-changer,” he says.

—By Luigi Benetton.