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We the people of the legal profession in order to better serve our clients, stay on top of appointments regardless of our location, insure tranquility even in tense surroundings, and secure the blessings of our peers, do ordain and establish the Palm as the means to accomplishing each of these objectives. Long live the Palm and its successors in interest -- especially in the legal profession!

Can you tell that we're Palm fans? While we certainly don't view ourselves as a modern-day Patrick Henry (Give us our Palm or give us death!), we could pass for Thomas Jefferson (We hold it that a little Palm is a good thing and as necessary in the legal world as storms in the physical.). People often debate whether technology enhances our lives or just makes them more complex. Although we have our doubts about the fax machine and overnight couriers, we're convinced that the Palm can change the professional lives of lawyers for the better. We are living proof of this assertion and determined to prove it in this article.

In many ways, the two of us could serve as representative icons for the legal profession in the new millennium. Most notably, we both work in small offices that depend on technology to manage information and keep afloat in the sea of paper that swamps the legal profession. One of us (Robert) works as an employment lawyer, primarily representing management in labor disputes. His firm (Rice & Associate) consists of himself, one associate, and an administrative assistant. The other author of this piece (Warren) practices primarily in the fields of corporate law, estate planning, and real estate at a full service firm of twelve lawyers (Lieben, Whitted, Houghton, Slowiaczek and Dougherty, P.C.).

Like those of you reading this piece, we work long hours and we often find ourselves away from the office -- Robert in court or at arbitration hearings and Warren in conference rooms hammering out deals and closings. Not too long ago, this "workstyle" of ours meant having to choose between leaving all of our critical data (contacts, appointments, e-mail, etc.) in the office or lugging around a hefty laptop. Thanks to the Palm, this dilemma no longer exists -- we carry our critical data in our suit jackets. Women who wear dresses rather than suits can easily carry the Palm in their handbags or briefcases.

Because of the Palm's small size, we carry it with us everywhere we go. As a result, the Palm is a product that gets used. For example, Robert brings his Palm to court to prevent judges from setting a hearing date at the same time he's supposed to be in trial elsewhere. Robert also takes it with him on business trips so that he always has his calendar and address book. After all, without one's calendar and address book, what good is a wristwatch and a telephone? Warren brings his Palm to every meeting he attends. He uses an easy-to-learn handwriting recognition program called Graffiti to jot down notes on his Palm. Once back at the office, he can upload these notes into a word processing or case management program on his desktop computer.

Many laptop snobs scoff at the Palm precisely because of its tiny form factor. These glass-is-half-empty people argue that the Palm cannot replace a laptop. We completely agree, but those who posit this argument don't understand the purpose of a handheld computer. The Palm doesn't do much, but it excels at what it does do. As intimated above, most people use the Palm for calendar, contact, and task management, and note-taking (all those great ideas that pop into your head at inopportune times). The Palm comes with bundled software for each of these four tasks. As an added bonus, the Palm's interface is simple and uncluttered, and it makes good use of the limited screen real estate.

The Palm's bundled software suits the needs of most people, but we suspect that many of you reading this article have bigger software appetites than "most people." Because the Palm reigns supreme in the handheld computer world (despite Microsoft's efforts to steal its thunder), many companies develop Palm OS software. Most of these software publishers rely on the Internet as their principal distribution channel. Shareware and freeware developers use repositories like Handango whereas commercial developers use their own e-commerce systems. Popular third-party software titles among lawyers include TimeReporter (a time-billing solution that interfaces with Timeslips), StreetSigns (street maps of major metropolitan areas), and AportisDoc (document viewer).

In addition to its compact size and diverse array of software, the Palm has one additional ace in the hole -- its computer synchronization capabilities. Synchronization is effortless and reliable -- drop the Palm in its cradle, press the HotSync button, and watch in amazement as the Palm assimilates a lifetime of appointments and a thousand or so contacts. The only downside to synchronization lies in the fact that you may need to shell out a few bucks for a third-party solution. For example, the Palm does not sync with Microsoft Outlook out of the box. Instead, you have to buy a solution such as DataViz's Desktop To Go or Chapura's PocketMirror. Warren is a veteran Outlook user and prefers PocketMirror, but Desktop To Go syncs with Microsoft Schedule+ in addition to Outlook. And speaking of multilingual synchronization programs, Puma's Intellisync works with just about every major personal information management program in the marketplace. It goes without saying that Intellisync costs more than single-program solutions.

A discussion of the Palm would not be complete without dissecting its Internet capabilities. For approximately $130, you can purchase a modem that runs at 33.3Kbps, which is adequate for downloading e-mail and surfing the Web with a text-only browser. For those who must have an Internet connection anytime anywhere no matter the cost, OmniSky makes a wireless modem for the Palm V series that sells for a cool $299. The Palm's bundled e-mail software is relatively lightweight -- it only grabs messages from a PC. To retrieve e-mail from the Internet, you will once again have to brandish your wallet and buy a third-party solution like MultiMail Pro . Although the Palm cannot handle long e-mail messages because of memory constraints, programs like MultiMail Pro circumvent this limitation by breaking up long e-mail messages into smaller (byte-size) pieces. As a result, MultiMail Pro can accommodate messages as large as 2MB. MultiMail Pro can also leave e-mail messages on the server so that you can retrieve them again from your desktop PC.

We previously noted that it would be unfair to compare the Palm to laptops. But since many people engage in this apples-to-oranges exercise, we'll join the fray if only for a moment. One area in which the Palm truly outclasses laptops is in power usage. First, the Palm uses AAA batteries instead of those rechargeable bricks. Second, the Palm keeps going and going for hours, days, even weeks. Robert, who uses his Palm every day both with and without the backlight, can usually go three weeks on a single set of batteries.

Just as the United States Constitution has its flaws, so too does our beloved Palm. First, we would like a screen that better handles glare. We would also like all Palm models to adopt color screens (Palm only sells one color model at the present time and it also suffers from glare problems). Second, we think the modem should come as standard equipment in this day and age. Third, we would like to see true handwriting recognition rather than the Palm's reliance on Grafitti. In the meantime, here's a tip -- write as if you were in kindergarten (i.e., write big). Fourth, the Palm is rather fragile so we do not recommend it for those of who have "butter fingers." We will say, however, that Palm Computing has an excellent repair/replacement program.In the grand scheme of technology, the Palm's few flaws pale in comparison to its benefits and elegance. Other handheld computers exist and some (like the Cassiopeia) have garnered great reviews, but we believe that the Palm has earned its number one spot. In fact, Robert has some experience with one of the also-rans. Prior to using the Palm, he used an HP 200LX. The HP ran just about any DOS program that Robert could shoehorn into the limited memory. However, he had trouble synchronizing data between the HP and his office PC. As a result, the HP 200LX's calendar and the office calendar were never perfectly synchronized. Thus, the 200LX never became an essential tool and Robert stopped carrying it around. Granted, Microsoft's new Pocket PC operating system runs circles around its predecessor in the HP 200LX and no doubt synchronizes perfectly, but Pocket PC devices cost twice as much as a typical Palm OS device.

As James Madison, the self-professed father of the Constitution might have said were he alive today, no device is so copious as to supply a solution for every task involved in the practice of law, but the Palm comes much closer than other devices. We couldn't agree more.

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