As I began my first year of law school a month ago, I found myself scavenging the web for tools to use on my Mac and iPhone to help with law school. Below I have listed the apps, links and other resources I found most valuable. Several of these apps offer student discounts, be sure to check.
Book
“1L of a Ride” is a great book that can calm your nerves as a 1L and put things in perspective. Lots of great advice from a professor on the first year experience.
Useful apps for Mac
Things – a great ToDo, Get Things Done (GTD) app without all the complication. Simple and flexible. I set up each course as a “Project” in Things to keep my tasks per class separated. You could also achieve separation by using tags.
iCal - built in app from Apple. Between iCal and Things I can pretty much stay organized. These apps play well together too, read more on Things website.
OmniOutliner – great tool for outlining.
OmniGraffle – Great for those who like see visual relationships. Also, I found it works great to make T-briefs in. Here is my template file: T-Brief OmniGraffle Template (use at your own risk, I take no responsibility for it).
WriteRoom – If you need to get some words down without the distractions use this app. Great for essay writing.
TextExpander – Use this for repetitive words or phrases. For example, type “IIED” and TextExpander turns it into Intentional Inflection of Emotional Distress, whoa a mouthful – see why its handy? You do NOT want to type that more than once.
Useful apps for iPhone
Blacks Law Dictionary – I don’t actually have this but it looks nice. At the moment, I’m relying on the built in Dictionary app with Bouvier’s law dictionary added into it (see below). Note the edition currently available offers the 8th edition of the dictionary where the 9th is out in print. So there may be an update coming soon with the next edition.
Things - this app works great as a standalone or with the app for Mac. If you have both, they sync wirelessly.
Links
Mac Law Student Blog – this is a great resource which goes well beyond the scope of my little post. The whole blog is dedicated to using a Mac as a law student. Lots of great info here.
Article on studying for exams – recommended by my professor.
Add a law dictionary to Mac’s built in Dictionary
