Delaware Campus Library Blogs

The Sunlight Foundation has created Open States, a website that tracks legislative information for all 50 states. This information has been available from state websites but it isn’t always easy to use. Open States gathers all the information with one easy to use interface. You can track bills, check your legislator’s voting record, even click on a map to find out who your state legislators are. Having just tried to do the same thing on the state of Delaware’s voting district maps, Open States definitely has an easier map interface.

The Delaware coverage includes bills and even includes the synopsis note for those of you doing legislative history. Unfortunately right now the coverage only goes back 2 years. Open States also has a handy iPhone/iPad app that lets you access your state legislature on the go.

Boy howdy is there ever an app for that…this all started because I read about an app developed by New York Law School’s Mendik Library.  I looked them up in the iTunes App Store and happened to click the “related” option and down the rabbit hole I went.  For an even more detailed list of apps see the libguides prepared by UCLA & University of Akron.

Handy Apps for Law Students

Fastcase – a free legal research application.  It contains cases and statutes from all 50 states.  There are 3 ways to search: by citation, keyword, or browse the statute collections.  It can be downloaded for free from the iTunes App Store and can be used on the iPhone & the iPad.  There is also an Android version.

LawStack – it is described as a “law library in your pocket.”  With this app you get the US Constitution (as amended 5/5/92), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,    Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy  Procedure (effective as of Dec. 1, 2011).  You can also add the DE Code, New York Code, & CFR.  This is a free app available for download at the iTunes App Store.

CaseBriefs – it includes these features which are aimed at law students: student briefs, course outlines, & law school exam preparation materials.  It is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

U.S. Code – the entire U.S. Code for your iOS device, where you will be able to access all the federal statutes without using the internet.  Available for free from the iTunes App Store.

iStudiez Pro – award-winning app that helps you (the busy student) organize your life.  It offers many ways to organize your schedule and is available for purchase from the iTunes App Store for $2.99.  There is an    iStudiez Lite which is free but is not as feature rich.

Law School Dojo – this app will help take some of the boredom out of studying.  “It offers hundreds of multiple choice questions to learn legal doctrine,     vocabulary, and procedure, along with random legal trivia.” Available to download for free from the iTunes App Store (there are additional versions e.g. quizzes on torts, Civil Procedure, etc but these are not free).

OpenRegs – with this app you will be able to take the Federal Register with you no matter where you go.  It is free and available for download from the iTunes App Store.

LexisNexis Law School Q&A Series –  this app is available to download for free from the iTunes App Store, each in app purchase is $14.99.  It is the Q&A exam prep series as an interactive app.  It includes 27 subject areas (available as in app purchases): Civ Pro, Evidence, Torts, Constitutional Law, Crim Pro, Constitutional Law etc.

Wilmington law firm Potter Anderson & Corroon has offered eDelaware, featuring full text of Delaware corporation, business entities and Uniform Commercial Code laws and case law summaries for some time now. But I’ve never had the chance to try it out because it was only available for Blackberry.

Now they’ve rolled out an iPhone/iPad version so I installed it out on my iPad to give it a try. The app includes full text of the Delaware General Corporation Law, the Statutory Trust Act, LLC Act, Revised Uniform Partnership Act, Revised Uniform Limited Partnership Act and Articles 8 and 9 of the Delaware Uniform Commercial Code. All of these are downloaded onto your iPad so you can easily access them even when you don’t have internet access.

Also included are summaries of recent Delaware cases written by Potter Anderson attorneys. The most recent case summary when I checked today was for a case decided on April 10, 2012 so they are keeping it up to date.

This will be a handy app for anyone interested in Delaware corporation law. And best of all it’s free. You can install it through the iTunes app store.

The Library of Congress has just released an iPad app that brings each day’s Congressional Record to your iPad. Each issue is a PDF file that you can email and share with other people. The new app is available from the iTunes store.

Follow the latest US Supreme Court cases on your iPhone or other mobile device with OyezToday. OyezToday has easy-to-grasp abstracts for every case granted review, timely and searchable audio of oral arguments + transcripts, and up-to-date summaries of the Court’s most recent decisions including the Court’s full opinions.

The app was created by IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and is available for both iPhone, iPad and Android devices FREE.

A few months ago I did a blog post on mobile apps for law students and lawyers. I just attended the CALI conference at Marquette Law School where I saw a good presentation on iPad apps for legal education. They covered a few apps I hadn’t seen before.

2Screens – Use your iPad to make presentations. There is also 2Screens Remote that lets your iPad function as a remote for your presentation.

GoodReader – Read and annotate PDFs on your iPad.

CamScanner – Scan and share documents with your iPad.

ThinkBook – a note taking app.

Evernote – another note taking app. I’d heard of this before but I’ve never tried it. It sounds handy.

Here’s a complete list of all the apps mentioned in the presentation. You can watch the presentation online too.

Here is a quick run down of some of the legal apps available for your smart phone. Most are iPhone/iPad apps but there are some apps for Android phones. Just a disclaimer, I haven’t had a chance to try all of these out. If you have any other suggestions let me know in the comments.

Free (or partly free) apps

LexisNexis Get Cases & Shepardize – Look up cases and Shepardize on your iPhone. The app is free but you need a LexisNexis password to get a case and shepardize.

Real Time Congress – Get updates from the US House and Senate.

PocketJustice – Recordings and transcripts of Supreme Court oral argument plus summaries of cases. The top 100 cases are free, the full version (600+ constitutional law cases) is $4.99. Also available for Android.

Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary – A free legal dictionary. It’s aimed at non-lawyers but could also be useful for law students.

ABA Journal – Get legal news from the ABA Journal on your iPhone or iPad.

Apps for a Fee

Black’s Law Dictionary – The standard legal dictionary now has an iPhone/iPad app version.

Law in a Flash and Sum and Substance – Two popular study guides  have an iPhone app version.