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Target, Practice: ProView Makes Lawyers Swifter

By Robyn Hagan Cain on January 31, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

As much as we love New Orleans, home of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, it is a dangerous city. There were 199 murders in the Crescent City in 2011. There have already been 20 murders in New Orleans this year, and January isn't quite finished.

While many of the culprits and victims are part of the city's drug and gang violence, bystanders and good Samaritans sometimes get caught in the cross-fire. As a Fifth Circuit practitioner, you not only need to be aware of your surroundings when appearing before the federal appellate court in New Orleans, you also need to take measures to make yourself a less-appealing target. So why not use your iPad and Thomson Reuters new ProView app to make yourself a little safer?

Or at least a faster-moving target.

Criminals choose easy victims for muggings. Imagine a future in which you're not a slow-moving opportunity wheeling 8,000 pounds of books in a suitcase to the courthouse. That's the future that ProView -- a new iPad app for codes, court rules, and legal references -- offers.

ProView is better than legal reference books, or accessing the same information on your laptop, because it allows you to highlight and make notes in the titles you load, just like you do in traditional books.

Unlike other eReaders, ProView transfers your highlighting and comments to the latest volume of a title each time you update to a new edition because it securely saves your notes and annotations on a Thomson Reuters cloud. With ProView, there's no need to become a crime statistic while fighting a mugger over your iPad; your notes and annotations will be waiting for you when your replace the stolen tablet. (Sidebar: Never fight a mugger.)

For now, available titles are limited. Texas practitioners, however, are in luck because the Texas Rules of Court, as well as several professional development titles, are among the early ProView offerings in case you want a taste of what the future will be like. New titles will be added soon.

The app is free, so you only pay for the titles you need, but you need a Westlaw OnePass username and password to access the app. If you want to play with the app before making a purchase, you can access McKinney's New York Rules of Court, Federal District, for free. (If you're also licensed in New York, you just got a free copy of McKinney's New York Rules of Court, didn't you?)

If you have an iPad, give ProView a try with a free sample book. And if you're debating the iPad splurge, check out this ProView preview. Either way, you can prepare yourself to convert from suitcase-laden lawyer to ProView professional.

And when you finally make the switch from paper to ProView, remember: Blatantly carrying an iPad makes you a more-likely target, so don't be obvious about the fact that you have a portable, $400 gadget in your possession. Toss the iPad in your satchel.

Let's stay safe out there, 5th Circuit.

[Note: FindLaw is a Thomson Reuters business.]

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