By Jeremy Pasternak and Shaana A. Rahman

CAOC "Forum" - July 2006

First, a disclaimer: For those of you who already have a wireless PDA or smartphone, this article is going to sound as dated as someone extolling the virtues of rail travel. You can skip this article. However, if you have no idea what a wireless PDA or smartphone is, read on.

Second, our pitch:

We hate our voice-mail. We hate our e-mail. We hate getting phone calls and faxes. These are intrusions into whatever it is we may be working on at the moment.

Oddly, we love our Treo smartphones, and even though they bring the above to us at all hours of the day, this brief article is nothing short of an unabashed endorsement of these things (though we have no contract with Palm, Inc., the manufacturer of the Treo, we wouldn’t say no to a "thank-you").

The Treo is the latest incarnation of a PDA or "Personal Data Assistant." Its appeal is that it does everything your old PDA used to do and more. The currently-vogue term for these is "smartphone." Smartphones are handheld devices that combine a mobile phone with e-mail, wireless web access, messaging, camera, MP3 player, calendar, and organizer.

Recent advances in the technology have taken these devices far beyond where they were just a few years ago. In short, the technology is now such that you can do everything you can do at your desk, from anywhere.

Although those who usually shy away from these devices do so because they fear they will heighten their anxiety and frustration, and not allow them to "put work down," we have found the opposite to be true. How many times have you stayed at the office, waiting for a particular e-mail from opposing counsel, when you just wanted to get on the road to home? How many times have you learned of some emergency just as you were going into court, and wished you could have reviewed the relevant documents while you were waiting to have your case heard? How many times have you used your cell-phone to call information for that same number, knowing that each time it cost you $1.75? A Treo or other wireless PDA can put an end to all that.

At the risk of sounding like a commercial on late night TV:

It Talks!

The Treo is a cellular phone. It includes a very good speakerphone (good enough to use in a car – no headset) and can also be used with a headset or earpiece.

Even better, because the Treo synchronizes with the contacts in your "Outlook" computer program (yes, you do have this; it is standard with the Microsoft Windows operating system, and even if you don’t have it Treo’s manufacturer, Palm, gives you software that you can use, and your entire rolodex can be input in a few hours), you always have all your numbers at hand. This simply cannot be compared to having numbers in your cell phone. Any PDA can store literally thousands of contacts, and these contacts can be retrieved by name, number, keywords, and by other means, so they are always close at hand, even if you do not remember who it is you are trying to reach. For instance, I keep a listing for an investigator I like to use for car accidents. I know that I never remember his name, so in the "notes" section of his contact entry I have typed "investigator – car accidents." If I type any one of those words into my Treo, I will find his entry.

Even better, once you locate the number, by pressing one button, you can tell the device to call the number, and it can even select from multiple numbers or e-mail. The Treo’s 32mg of memory allows you to hold a great deal of information but depending on your needs, you may want to add additional memory by purchasing an expansion card which easily fits into a slot at the top of the Treo.

It Transmits!

A wireless PDA is an e-mail device. You can set your Treo to contact your computer server (it can work with a regular desktop, too) to get your e-mails at any interval, e.g. every 15 minutes.

The Treo has a small keyboard on it, which requires skilled thumb typing if you have grown-up sized hands. It sounds harder than it is and the minor inconvenience is well worth it. You will appreciate it when you are sitting in a deposition and can send an e-mail to your assistant to draft a deposition notice for the key witness that the deponent just named.

If you intend to do a substantial amount of note taking with your Treo, it makes sense to purchase a wireless keyboard. They are fairly inexpensive now and are

not much bigger than your old PDA when folded up.

It Reads!

The newest-generation Treos can even be used to read scanned documents, such as those created by Adobe Acrobat. This means that if you are away from the office, and a letter or other document comes in, your staff can get you a copy and you can read it wherever you are.

The Treo also allows you to carry documents in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint as attachments that you can edit, review and e-mail using a program called Documents to Go. This allows you to stop editing documents on the road with your old red pencil. Although this is not a great way to draft full documents (given the small keyboard) it is very useful for editing, again, from anywhere.

It Keeps You on Time!

Just as the Treo updates you with e-mails, it also updates your contacts and calendar. This means that if you are out of the office, and your assistant puts something into your schedule, it is automatically, wirelessly, put into your handheld device. Similarly, if you enter an appointment into your device, it is reflected at your office.

This means no more "checking with my secretary," (unless that’s the excuse you’re using today), no more double-booking, and no more keeping two separate hard-calendars.

It Searches the Web!

The Treo also can access the Internet, and quite well, too. Though not as fast as your desktop computer with broadband, it is still faster than a dial-up service, and is actually pretty useful. It has a built in web browser which is easy to use. If you have access to Westlaw, there is Westlaw Wireless which is a mobile version of the legal database which has almost all of the Westlaw content but with modified page layouts and graphics to fit the smaller screen of the smartphone.

There is also quite a bit of optional software you can download (some free and some not) such as GPS Navigator for directions and time/billing software programs.

Fun Features

The Treo also has a camera which allows you to take decent quality photos and short videos and store them on your phone. It also easily allows you to send the photos and video clips via e-mail to yourself or others. Less useful for lawyering, but fun nonetheless, is the MP3 player which allows you to transfer music from your desktop to your phone and play it from the tiny speakers in the phone. The Treo also has Bluetooth wireless technology built-in so you can connect with other Bluetooth-enabled devices such as a PDA to wirelessly beam information from one device to the other. The Bluetooth capability also enables you to operate a wireless headset which improves the overall sound quality of the phone.

Desktop and IT Requirements

It does not take much to get started using the Treo. Although it comes with a rather lengthy manual, the set-up is fairly easy and if you have the benefit of an IT person, it requires about an hour of a professional’s time. You will need a decent desktop set-up to use the Treo. For Windows PC, you will need Windows 2000 or Windows XP, a USB port and a CD-ROM drive. For you Macintosh users, the Treo requires Mac OS 10.2 to 10.3, a USB port and a CD-ROM drive.

A Word on the Blackberry

This is another popular device, which can also send and receive e-mail, keep a calendar, and be used as a phone. However, it lacks the ability to read and edit documents, and it does not synchronize as seamlessly with your desktop software.

We said this was an endorsement, and it is: we think the Treo is vastly superior.

Protecting Your Client’s Confidences While Using Your Smartphone

Similar to the use of laptop computers out of your office, there exists the possibility of losing your phone and therefore your data. If you send and receive e-mail from clients using your smartphone, this is a concern as attorney-client privileged matter may be stored on your phone. Palm does provide a tool to lock your phone when you realize it has been lost or stolen. While this has the potential to mitigate the damage, it is not a cure-all. Due to the ease with which a small device such as this can be lost, it is a good practice to only store client matters on the phone for short periods of time.

Conclusion

When initially presented with the idea that our offices could essentially follow us anywhere we went, we screamed in collective horror. However, the practical effect has been to allow us to effectively multi-task by sending and receiving e-mail or attending to calendaring matters during downtime in depositions, mediations and court (with the sound off, please). As the use of e-mail has exploded, the amount of time it takes away from our "in-office" time is substantial. With the Treo we have been able to recapture some of that time and in the end increase our productivity.

Jeremy D. Pasternak has law offices in San Francisco. He is a member of the Forum Editorial Board.

Shaana A. Rahman is with The Dolan Law Firm in San Francisco. She is a member of the Forum Editorial Board.