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Screencaps from the Torys iPhone App

Torys LLP has launched what appears to be the first Canadian law firm iPhone application.  Available as a free download via the iTunes app store, the app includes sections incorporating the firm’s twitter stream, publications, a lawyer directory, video content and firm contact information and maps.

While they may be first to market in Canada, this app is not something that has been haphazardly banged together – quite the opposite in fact.  The firm has clearly put some solid thinking behind what information should be included and how it is presented.  For example, the lawyer directory goes beyond a simple list to include the lawyers’ photos, short form versions of their bios and links to the full website versions.  The contact information includes GPS functionality and live directions to their offices.  As already noted on Slaw:

The GPS features might be useful for visitors to Toronto, or the hapless OCI student trying to find their way to an in-firm interview.
The app might even be useful for that cocktail party where you know the lawyer across the room works at Torys, and quite embarrassingly cannot remember their name.

Earlier this year well-known legal blogging and technology thought-leader Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog wrote on his blog about why firms should forget about building an iPhone App.  To summarize his arguments, Kevin says: 1) in a sea of 150,000+ different apps, yours will never get found or widely used, and 2) the logic behind building a law firm app is flawed because that’s like asking people to download a separate app for every content source they follow instead of using well-known destinations where content is already aggregated. For those reasons, he concludes that developing an iPhone app is a waste of resources and time and makes your firm look silly by demonstrating a misunderstanding of how content is consumed online.

I have great respect for Kevin and he and I see the world alike more often than not, but on this topic I think he’s DEAD WRONG.

My position is that the goal of a large law firm iPhone app is not to be magically discovered by the world at large in that giant app-sea of games, productivity tools, and time-wasters.  Rather, it is to provide existing and prospective clients that already have the firm squarely on their radar another access point and contact opportunity, and to strengthen their sense of connection with the firm.  If I’m a new client sitting in the lobby in advance of my second meeting, I might very well appreciate having easy access to the names and faces of lawyers two, three or four that I’ve only met briefly even though I already know my primary contact well.  If I’m a General Counsel sitting at the airport and find myself with a half-hour flight delay, I might well browse through my apps and decide to scan a few headlines from the firm’s twitter feed, which the app makes dead-simple for me to find.

As an end-user, the mere presence of the App on my phone also creates ongoing additional top-of-mind awareness for those firms that do make it onto my system, every time I scan through my phone, which is daily.  Kevin himself points out in his post that the way we consume content is changing at lightning speed.  That being the case, why would we presume to speak for whether or not it is “silly” for someone else to consume law firm content via a standalone app instead of via a blog, a twitter client, or a website?  If there is one thing the 300 channel tv universe and the explosion of social media online has shown us, it is that we don’t all want our content in one homogenous fashion.

Kevin also writes that he thinks the upcoming iPad is going to be “a game-changer”.  Well guess what – those standalone law firm iPhone apps he dislikes are going to work from day 1 on the iPad and could be great high-tech “lobby material” in lieu of the traditional printed firm brochure – that would send a pretty clear message to clients about the level of technological savvy they can expect from their counsel.  My money also says that the firms building iPhone apps now are also going to be the early adopters in getting blackberry versions rolling as well and while there may be apps beyond count in Apple’s store, there certainly isn’t yet in the blackberry world, where a heavy concentration of lawyers, in-house counsel and corporate clients reside.

I also had the opportunity to speak with Torys’ Chief Marketing Officer Stuart Wood earlier today and he made several points that solidified my thinking on this topic even further.  Mr. Wood pointed out that the project was neither expensive nor particularly time-consuming, and will provide the firm with real data about usage and adoption rates, which they can then use to make better decisions about further iterations, supporting other platforms etc.  He also reports that initial feedback from clients in the first week has been both significant and highly positive and is frequently coming directly from the clients to their own lawyers as opposed to marketing or firm management. Other firms’ I.T. departments are also calling their peers at Torys to find out more about the technical aspects. When the client is taking the initiative to make contact with your lawyers directly to congratulate you on a new marketing initiative and have a chat, and the competitors are calling to see how they can replicate what you’ve done, my money says the small investment in developing that free app has just paid for itself in spades.

Steve Matthews of Stem Legal has just announced that nominations are open for the 2009 Clawbies Awards (for best Canadian law blogs).

Here are my three picks:

1. SLAW Slaw is a perennial award-winner of myriad blog awards. While that might make it a boring pick, it doesn’t change the fact that it continues to deliver the goods month in, month out with a wide list of contributors that collectively provide insight into recent developments and current trends in Canadian legal practice, technology and scholarship that make it the online equivalent of the local watering hole for Canadian law geeks. Essential stuff.

2. Thoughtful Law David Bilinsky’s Thoughtful Law blog is another multiple award winner that covers a broad territory – from change management to technology trends to personal renewal – with aplomb. The difference is that it’s all being powered by a single person instead of the large ensemble cast that contributes to Slaw. (Disclaimer: Dave is both a friend and a Skunkworks client. Don’t hold that against him – the blog stands on its own merits).

3. ICBC Law Blog I frequently use Victoria lawyer Erik Magraken as a poster boy for how younger lawyers and smaller firms can successfully use online content marketing to showcase their expertise, establish themselves as thought leaders, and disrupt the old hierarchies that historically made age and firm size key criteria for winning work. A plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer based out of Victoria, Erik’s blog (and facebook page and twitter profile, and JD Supra documents etc. etc.) succeed(s) because he provides useful, factual information to his readers about his area of practice without resorting to salesmanship. In the process, he also demonstrates his passion for and knowledge of the subject, and gives himself terrific top-of-mind presence to a large online audience. The result is an informative and effective practitioner’s blog that builds business and no doubt makes him a better lawyer for the very act of writing it.

So there you have it – three blogs that make my personal list for some of the best CanCon of the 2009 blogosphere. Check them out if you haven’t already, and be sure to make your own Clawbies picks via email, twitter or blog post as described here.

P.S. A final word – Jordan Furlong’s Law 21 and Steve Matthews’ Stem Law Firm Web Strategy Blog are also both gold medal winners in my view, but have selflessly removed themselves from Clawbies contention due to the small technical complication that they are the ones dishing out the awards. I hope it doesn’t spoil my ballot, but consider this a ceremonial vote for them anyhow.

I have recently started exploring an extremely interesting new online application called Dipity. Simply stated, Dipity allows you to instantly visualize information in 4 different ways – as a timeline, as a flipbook (similar to Apple’s “Cover Flow” if you are familiar with that) as a simple list, or as a map if your entries have a geographic component to them.
A very interesting aspect of the service is that it allows you to pull in all sorts of content (RSS feeds, twitter streams, photos, video, you name it). Feeds update automatically and you can also create manual entries.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I created a quick topic of “Canadian law firms on Twitter” by adding the rss feeds from the firms’ respective twitter accounts. (The firms I have included are: Borden Ladner Gervais, Clark Wilson, Davis, Gowlings, Hicks Morley, McCarthy Tetrault, Ogilvy Renault, Oslers and Torys). Have a look below. The buttons in the top left corner let you switch between the 4 different types of view available, and the +/- slider bar directly underneath them is similar to the zoom feature on Google Maps, except that it is adjusting for time (i.e. view in hours, days, weeks, months, years) instead of space.

I think the potential of a visualization tool like this for lawyers is considerable. More on that in a future post. For now, consider this an introduction to the concept.

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