From Legal Pad to iPad: Mobile Content Delivery and the Law

Abstract

The prevalence of handheld devices is changing the way people access and use information. Given the strong history of legal content available electronically in Australia, this paper examines the current state of play in providing content via mobile devices. Although there are proven applications for other practitioner based disciplines, such as medicine, can the same be said of law?

This paper seeks to discover whether there is a desire, and indeed a possibility, for mobile content delivery in this discipline. By surveying academics and students, this paper seeks to assess the options of mobile legal scholars and where their access points, or ‘content spaces’, might be. Further, by examining existing standards and applications, the paper seeks to determine how useful current and future mobile applications are to the legal discipline.

With the sheer amount of information and text involved in legal issues, what role will mobiles play in charting the future of legal content? Are current publisher models conducive to the mobile world, and will this result in a new generation of vendors selling applications as content?