Why lawyers need a second monitor

Part of my blogging focus for this year is on LawHacking... basically productivity and workflow for lawyers.

What better place to start than with a pet subject of mine (and something which I regularly get asked about by other lawyers), the concept of beefing up your computer by adding a second (or third!) monitor?

I recently posted on iPad Lawyer about using the iPad as a second monitor to extend your desktop, but what I am really talking about here is the more traditional step of either adding a second monitor to your desktop computer or an external monitor to your laptop so that you can extend your desktop onto both displays.

This isn't a new idea. There has been quite a lot of research on the subject, but a good place to start is this Microsoft Research article from way back in 2003, which hints at a productivity gain of between "9 and 50 per cent" simply by adding a second display.

There has been a lot of debate about the productivity gains. Obviously it depends on what kind of tasks you use your computer for, but in my experience it makes most things faster and easier. Even if you assume a very conservative increase of 5%, the payback time should be short compared to the cost of a new monitor these days (well under £200 for a 17 inch display).

What kind of tasks does it work particularly well for? My top five probably looks a bit like this:-

• Comparing two or more documents side by side
• Cutting and pasting stuff from an email or note from one screen into a document I am drafting on the other
• Dragging and dropping emails from Outlook on one monitor into document management on the other
• Previewing a PowerPoint slideshow on one monitor while tweaking the slides on the other
• Referring to emails in Outlook on one monitor for information I need to type an email in the other

There aren't many tasks on Windows or Mac OS which aren't easier with two displays and you very quickly get used to having the extra real estate and flexibility. In my experience people who have tried it out for a few days are pretty reluctant to go back to a single monitor setup.

How easy is it to do?

With a laptop it is simply a question of plugging the monitor into your VGA out socket.

With a desktop system you may need to add a different or second graphics card, which could make life more difficult. Whilst I haven't used them there are also systems like DisplayLink (who also make the app to extend the desktop onto your iPad via WiFi) which appear to allow USB connectivity.

If you use a terminal server or some other system which means that your physical PC is acting as a thin client then you probably need the multiple monitor setup to be implemented at the server end... hopefully you are on good terms with your IT manager!

Once plugged in you simply need to adjust the display properties to make sure that your desktop is "extended" onto the extra monitor (rather than mirrored, which would just give you two identical displays). You also need to adjust the layout of the monitors to match your physical setup (so that the mouse can move from one display to the other correctly).

Full step-by-step instructions for Windows can be found here and for Mac OS here.

On a Windows system it is worth investing in a utility called Ultramon which adds some extra functionality. It actually does lots of things, but the most useful functions are:-

1. Extending the Taskbar onto the second monitor (so that you have a separate task bar for applications running on that monitor)

2. Adding some extra icons alongside the standard Windows "minimise" buttons which allow you to flick a window into the other monitor (or to a monitor of your choice if you have more than two) without having to physically drag them with the mouse.

From there it is simply a matter of arranging windows onto whichever display suits you better.

A couple of words of warning.

One risk of this setup is that it can be distracting if you use it to work on one monitor with your Outlook inbox (or even worse your Twitter client!) open on the other. Generally it makes sense to minimise anything which is going to distract you from the task in hand (as well as taking the standard advice to disable any "new mail" alerts or other popups).

Also, if you use your laptop remotely without the second monitor connected you tend to find that when reconnected to the second monitor all of your windows have moved hack to the laptop display. This is another reason to get Ultramon as you can use it to save the positions for different display setups.

Finally, it becomes very frustrating when you are forced to going back to one display. In fact, this is probably the easiest way to measure how much difference it makes to your workflow. Try a dual monitor setup for a couple of weeks and then trying going back to the old system!

Other iPad lawyers

As well as writing about my own experiences of the iPad, I have also been keeping an eye on what others have been blogging about its suitability for lawyers. A quick roundup of the highlights so far:

Jason Plant has changed tack slightly on his No Option for Law Firm blog with a post entitled Stop printing your emails… the iPad's a game changer. Using Adobe Acrobat to turn his email inbox into a PDF folder for viewing on the iPad is a pretty creative idea - although I won't be able to try it without investing a hefty sum for Acrobat 9.

@ljanstis (a new Twitter followee of mine) has also shared his experiences in the iPad and legal practice on his Work Life Law blog, which highlights some interesting drawbacks and benefits. Apparently the most was inspired by an earlier piece by @neildenny on Lawyer1point9. and my own (much less eloquent) ramblings.

Finally, I also stumbled on a higher profile review in The Times by the eminent legal expert Richard Susskind (will lawyers find the iPad useful?). This was probably the least useful contribution and would have been a lot more relevant if it had been written by someone using the iPad in legal practice. For example, anyone who has followed my posts will see that using Pages to edit legal documents (as Susskind suggests) is pretty much a non-starter. Unfortunately, the moderators obviously didn't agree with me and my comment to this effect has ended up on the Times moderating room floor.

I'm sure there are other UK lawyers blogging on the subject so if you know of any then please give me a shout so I can include them!

The iPad Lawyer - Documents to Go

Developments on the iPad front are coming thick and fast... whilst I was writing yesterday's post about editing legal documents on the iPad it turns out that DataViz were launching a new version of their Documents To Go software which now works on the iPad.

Documents To Go has been available on the iPhone for a while, but the iPad release goes a long way towards addressing the concerns I have previously raised about using the iPad to edit legal documents.

The download is priced at £6.99 in the UK (continuing the trend of iPad apps being vastly more expensive than their iPhone counterparts). I have bought and installed the App and in my view it is well worth the price. You can either transfer documents across and work on them in the same way as any other App - or download the desktop version of Documents To Go which apparently allows you to keep the documents in sync between the desktop and the iPad (I haven't tested this yet).

A couple of screenshots show how big a leap this is (click on the images for the full sized versions which are more readable). The first one shows a typical legal document which I have imported from MS Word format into Pages on the iPad:-

You can see that the formatting is all over the place, the numbering has gone haywire and it generally looks a complete mess. Rest assured that if you export it back into Word or email it to someone the end result won't look any better.

Here is the same document imported into Documents To Go.

It basically looks exactly the same as on my desktop... and when edited and exported back it still looks exactly the same with all the underlying formatting and numbering intact.

I still wouldn't want to draft a share purchase agreement on the iPad, but this opens to door to using it to edit documents whilst I am on the road in a way which wasn't possible at the beginning of the week.

There is still one problem... even Documents To Go can't handle documents with tracked changes (as Josh at Tablet Legal has previously noted).

A lot of firms prefer to use proprietary comparison software rather than the Microsoft tracked changes system so this may not be a dealbreaker for everyone, but it is still a bit limiting.

However, based on previous performance I will probably find that by the time I post this someone will have released an App to do it!

Update on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 1:50PM by Peninsulawyer

Update:- I have also testing the integration between Documents To Go and Dropbox and it works really nicely. Simply connect the App with your Dropbox account and you can work on documents and save the revisions back to your Dropbox (which doesn't seem to work with Pages and other Apps).

The only thing to note is that you have to exit the document once you have saved it any sync your Dropbox before it will show up.

The Documents To Go desktop method of transfer seems to require you to be connected via the same WiFi network so I don't know how useful this will be for me in the office, but the Dropbox functionality seems to cover what I need.

The iPad Lawyer part two

Since my first iPad Lawyer post I have been asked whether there is anything the iPad can do which can't be done just as well with a netbook.

My experience of the iPad is still fairly limited, but there are a few areas where I already think that it beats a netbook.

The first is battery life. The iPad battery is meant to be rated for 10 hours, but I am typing this on the iPad on the train back from London having tweeted, listened to music, emailed and reviewed documents for 2 hours on the way down and then typed notes during a seminar for 3 hours… and the battery is still on 65% charge.

Netbook battery life varies, but an
Engadget review which I found suggests that real life performance of somewhere between 2 and 4 hours is typical.

I use a decent spec Dell laptop (not netbook) for work and in my experience even the 2 hour mark is optimistic. I would expect netbooks to perform better, but the iPad is clearly a long way ahead.

Of course, with a netbook you can take along a spare battery (although that would reduce the ultra portability). The iPad doesn't give you that option, but it seems unlikely that you would need it provided you have access to a power point each night.

The second thing which stands out is the touchscreen. The iPad display really does have to be seen in the flesh - web pages, photos and documents look fantastic - but it is the touch sensitive interface which really stands out.

I could zoom in on a PDF document on a netbook, scroll backwards and forwards and highlight text, but the speed and ease of doing this on the iPad is like nothing I have ever seen on a laptop or notebook.

Whilst I am an Apple fan, neither of these points are iPad exclusive. However, I do think that this tablet form factor with touchscreen and day-long battery life is much more attractive for document review on the go than a netbook.

I have also found that the iPad is excellent for note taking in seminars and meetings. The ability to type silently is useful (much less distracting for everyone), but also the tablet form means you don't have a laptop screen as a barrier between you and the rest of the meeting. The freedom from having to track down a power source and the accompanying trailing wires also cuts down on the hassle factor.

The only "downside" is that the level of interest in the device at the moment means that you end up demonstrating it to everyone rather than typing notes!

There are some less obvious areas where the iPad could also win out. As a sailor I have used Navionics chart software on my iPhone for a while now to plan trips and as a backup chart plotter.

Navionics chart software is available on the iPad now with charts for the UK and Holland for £22. A GPS equipped iPad 2.0 and this software would start to look like a seriously good value alternative to a dedicated chart plotter for sailers - and with a waterproof cover like the Aqua Pac which I use for my iPhone it could be a great alternative to a laptop for the cruising sailor. I am leaving aside here my annoyance at being asked to pay again for charts which I have already paid for on the iPhone (surely it is only the viewer which has been updated, which is a free download on its own?), but that is a side issue!

The downsides? The onscreen keyboard is good (much better than the iPhone), but it is no match for a real keyboard for touch typing. One real annoyance is the different location of the backspace and return keys on iPhone and iPad keyboards, which tends to catch me out when swapping between them. Combined with the word processing issues I mentioned in my last post, this means you would be much better off with a netbook for editing legal documents.

You can get the iPad keyboard (or a wireless keyboard) but this seems to make the iPad more cumbersome than the netbook.

The iPad is a great tool for consuming content, but I think that for creating or editing content the netbook would win out.

One last thing to mention is the case. I bought the official Apple case and despite a few dodgy reviews from others I really like it.

It does scuff easily, but it is fairly low key and it folds to hold the iPad in a decent typing position or to watch video. It could do with a clip to hold it closed, but generally I really like it. It would be hard to use the iPad without a case of some kind as it is fairly awkward to hold or type on - of the alternatives I have seen so far the Apple one seems like the best.

At this stage I think I would have to say that I rate the iPad as a device, but that for serious remote working it may not relieve you from having to take along your laptop or netbook… which could make the investment difficult to justify.

My next task is to try and use the iPad to log into our corporate VPN and see how it plays with that. I will report back…