How Attorneys Are Using Kindle in Their Practice

In 2007, Beyonce, Fergie, Nelly Furtado, Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne were among the celebrated musicians.

Two and a Half Men, CSI, Grey’s Anatomy and Survivor — China were the hit TV shows.

Forest Whitaker won the gold statue for Best Actor (in The Last King of Scotland).

And, the first Kindle was introduced on November 19 and sold for $399. It sold out in five and a half hours and wasn’t restocked until April 2008.

Two years later, a law professor and author, Larry Ribstein, writing on NY Litigation Firm, fretted about the hit his royalties would take as more people were discovering Kindle. Afraid the eBook provider would turn into the Napster of eBooks; Ribstein didn’t hold out much hope for the future of Kindle or other eBook readers.

While Ribstein worried about money in his pocket, other attorneys were concerned with client confidentiality. How could confidentiality be protected if files were sent flying all over the Internet? Those fears slowly faded, and one popular (law) book on Amazon is “The Law of Client Confidentiality.” It’s available on Kindle. Ironic, isn’t it?

Over the nine years that Kindle has been around, doomsday hasn’t happened. Attorneys are learning more about what their Kindle can do.

Law firms rely on PDF documents. Most lawyers have found there aren’t many good ways to read them comfortably and efficiently.

Supreme Court opinions, legal articles, and research — even appellate briefs — all come in a PDF format and have to be read. For the litigator who needs to be able to mark passages for later references as well as making notes of important passages, research, and questions, there are two options:

1. Send the pages to the printer, clear off space on the desk and spend hours hunched over a pile of paper with a highlighter and sticky notes close., Or,
2. Email the file to your Kindle’s email address and read the file while reclining in your favorite chair.

 

How to Make It Work

Each Kindle has an email address. To learn it, go to Amazon, find “Your Account” and click on “Manage Your Content and Devices.” Select “Your Devices,” click on the desired Kindle, and you’ll be shown the email address for that gadget.

Once you know the email, send an email to your Kindle with the PDF attached and the word ‘CONVERT’ as the subject. Amazon will handle conversion and deliver it to your Kindle free over a WiFi connection.

The ABA Journal recently reported that the Practicing Law Institute is publishing its continuing education books in MOBI, the format used by Kindle.

Kindle will allow you to upload documents and books onto the device as well as self-publish your own work through Amazon’s free publishing software.