LawStack – Offline access to Rules & Statutes

Download LawStack (FREE!)

Today’s app is LawStack from Tekk Innovations LLC.

LawStack is FREE!! It’s a universal app available for both the iPhone and iPad; the latest version is 8.307.20160327 and requires iOS 8.4.

LawStack has been around a LONG time and was one of the first actual “legal” apps that I downloaded for my iPad.

LawStack is the showcase app from Tekk Innovations that comes pre-loaded with Federal Rules and the U.S. Constitution for free. You can add more state and federal rules to your “stack” inside the app. Most of this content is free as well, but it’s limited.

And the reason why is because Tekk Innovations also sells a number of other apps with specialized content that require an annual subscription.

But if you download the LawStack app for FREE! and like the layout and features, you’ll be able to use any of their other apps just fine since they all look the same.

When you need to access a statute or rule today, what do you do?

If you’re at your desk, you could Google it.

If you still have dusty, outdated books in your office, you could pull one off the shelf and flip through the table of contents.

I do a lot of e-discovery consulting for my clients which means I’m constantly referencing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

When those rules were amended in 2006 I came into possession of a little orange book that aggregated JUST the e-discovery amendments and related committee notes.

I carried that book with me everywhere and it became dog-eared and a little tattered, but I could find what I needed because I could flip to the most-used pages. But then the rules were amended in the subsequent years, and my little orange book quickly became out-of-date, and basically useless.

LawStack lets me carry around the ENTIRE set of Federal Rules on my iPhone or iPad for Bankruptcy, Civil Procedure, Evidence, and Criminal Procedure EVERYWHERE!

Tapping into the FRCP, I can see the Titles, and it lists the rule numbers over on the right.

I can SEARCH for words or phrases rather than just guessing what section I need. You can search full-text or just the titles.

When you zero in on a specific rule, you can search the text there and have the hits highlighted.

You can select text to highlight a section, add a note, or copy the text into an e-mail to send to a colleague or client.

When a different section or rule is cited, a link takes you directly there … I can’t do that on paper.

But the best part of all is that LawStack is updated with the latest and most recent rule amendments. You can see the date right on the front screen.

While LawStack is free, the other apps require a subscription anywhere from $4.99 to $29.99 per year which pays for those updates.

That may be a little more than what you pay for Angry Birds™, but it’s a LOT less than what you USED to pay for updating the paper books back in the day.

If you can’t find your state rules in LawStack or the other apps, then reach out to the developer who has always been responsive. There’s no guarantee that it’ll be available since each state handles their copyright and rule access differently, but it’s certainly worth asking.

I’ve always found https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/app/lawstack/id338178992?mt=8&at=10laSo to be solid, reliable, and updated frequently. There are other similar apps out there offering access to state and federal rules, but I don’t find them updated as regularly.

Download LawStack (FREE!)