It has been about half a year since Fastcase released their fantastic iPhone app and became the first company to offer (free) fully-functional, mobile, native legal research.  I was fortunate to get an advance copy of the upcoming Fastcase iPad app, and I’m just as impressed this time around.

Legal research on the iPad could be a game-changer and Fastcase has set the bar exceptionally high.  While it can be difficult to stare at the iPhone’s tiny screen for extended periods of time, researching on the iPad is at least as natural as researching on your computer.  Some differences that make the iPad a great option for researching:  many people have a 3G data plan on their iPad, and the iPad is significantly more mobile than a laptop.

When you first open the iPad app, you’ll be prompted to either log into your Fastcase account or register for free.  The free registration is very easy and can be done within the app (so you don’t have to launch Safari) which really streamlines the registration process.  As soon as you’re registered, you can jump right into searching statutes or case law.  As you can see above, the search features are basically just what you’d expect, and quite intuitive.

You can elect to have search results display either “title + most relevant paragraph” (the default and my preference), “title + first paragraph” or just the title.  Once you’ve decided on the case you want to view, touch it, and you’ll see the case along with a navigation window on the left (assuming you’re in landscape mode).  If you decide you want to read the case (rather than skimming), simply turn the iPad into portrait mode: the navigation window will disappear and you’ll be left with what feels a whole lot like the cases you’re used to reading on paper.

My favorite “skip to most relevant section” feature is back in the iPad version.  As you can see in the image above, it’s highlighted my search terms and skipped ahead to what it (correctly) deemed the most relevant portion of the case.

You may also notice the font size slider.  By my count, the app supports 5 font sizes.  The default font size is comfortable for me, but for our near-sighted geek friends, the highest setting seems to be approximately font size 20.

Another extremely welcome feature is the “Find” bar (you can see it at the bottom in the image above).  Mobile users have gone without in-page searches for far too long, and it’s nice to see that trend changing.  Type a search term into the box, and the displayed case is searched, a popup tells you how many instances of the search term were found, the terms are highlighted, and you can easily switch between the terms.  Sure, it seems like a feature you just expect as a 21st Century computer user, but you’d be amazed at how often these types of features are overlooked.  One of the things that consistently impresses me about Fastcase is their ability to incorporate these subtle-yet-important features into their product.

You may have also noticed the Save feature.  If you have a wifi iPad, this is going to be your favorite feature.  Clicking on the Save button will actually store a local copy of the case on your iPad.  If you find yourself without an internet (or 3G) connection, you can still pull up these saved cases within the client.  In the future, I hope that saved cases will save to your Fastcase web account as well, but at the time of this review, that feature has not been implemented.

Concluding Thoughts

I wrote a post recently about why I thought that the iPad wasn’t quite ready to replace your laptop.  The Fastcase HD app is well on its way to changing my mind.  While iPhone productivity apps are generally judged by how well they serve as mobile programs, I think that iPad apps are judged by a different standard.

What I mean by that is that I love my Fastcase iPhone app.  I’ve used it while on public transit, and I’ve used it as the passenger in a car, but I’ve never once been home and took out my iPhone rather than my laptop to perform legal research.  That’s just not how I used my iPhone.  It is, however, often the way that I use my iPad.  I use my iPad when I don’t want to break out my laptop.  I can actually see myself using this app on an everyday basis.  I can imagine many scenarios where I would want to research by curling up with my lightweight tablet rather than my clunky laptop.

In a time where many legal companies are slow to adopt new technology, it would have been completely understandable for Fastcase to have rushed this app out the door in order to be the first legal research app for the iPad.  Impressively, this app doesn’t feel rushed at all.  No corners have been cut, no major features seem to be missing, and still, they’re the first on the market.  Kudos for that.

The Fastcase app should be available this week, and we’ll update with a link as soon as it clears through the Apple approval process.

[Update 7/20/2010: The app is now available on iTunes]

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