Its Always Bigger in Texas

After my glowing post about the Maryland Bar App, Texas got a little upset and wanted their fair recognition. After all, Texas had it first.

So, let me introduce you to the Texas Legal and the TCDLA apps by Lawbox LLC.

Unfortunately, heres how far I got with the TCDLA app:

But, if its anything like the Texas Legal app, Im sure its pretty cool.

On start, the the Texas Legal app appears to tie itself to the SBOTs site for sign-on credentials. I suspect you have to be a due-paying member of the Computer & Technology Section of the SBOT. Hence, my previously mentioned problem with the TCDLA app. Any texas lawyer should have the appropriate username and password which I believe lasts longer than my limited credentials.

Once youre logged in, I can see why Texas is bigger and better. Although most of the app is geared toward Texas case law, in a pinch, users could explore other statutes and rules, such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Rules of Evidence (Texas doesnt have screwey interpretations of those, right?)

The interface is clean, easily navigable, and contains a surprisingly large database of information.

My first thought was that the Texas Legal app resembled the DroidLaw app in the amount of information contained, without the price tag (unless you count bar dues) of add-ons. I can see that David is going to have some troubles making Goliath sit down.

I love many of the other features such as bookmarking and annotations, as well. The Texas Law app also links to outside resources, including Google Scholar (is there anyone not using this yet?). Although I did have some trouble with a couple links to websites (its me, not you), everything functioned the way it should.

One of my biggest hesitations about using this app (aside from its complete lack of application to my jurisdiction) is the tie-in for credentials.

While I never had a problem credentialing, I could imagine an instance where the user depends on their copy and cant use the app because theres no internet access. I suspect though, that since the app depends on a 200+ MB database, you wont have that problem.

Second, theres a significant issue with the uninstall and reinstall process meaning its non-existant. I had a problem replacing the app on my tablet after I uninstalled. This is a test I run to judge back side cleanliness. This app failed, miserably. On reinstall, I managed to download and install 1 of the 50 data packages. The fix wasnt hard: I deleted the data folder, then used the Reset App function in the apps menu link, to clean broken remnants. This did make for a little more work than I would prefer.

Overall, Texas lawyers will like this app. Theres a lot of information packaged into a single app, which I love. I always love free, and Texas has done it bigger and better by giving two effort the price of free with this app.

Texas Legal (free)