I was thrilled to be invited as the guest for the 46th Edition of The Digital Edge Podcast hosted by Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway. I’ve been listening to the podcast since they first launched so it was an honor to talk about “All Things Apple for Lawyers.”

The podcast is less than 27 minutes, but we managed to highlight all of the main questions that lawyers have about using Macs, iPhones & iPads in their practice. Jim & Sharon also provide all the links to everything we discussed in the shownotes.

You can listen to the “All Things Apple for Lawyers” podcast right from your browser, or you can subscribe through iTunes. I recommend the subscription option so that you don’t miss an episode of this great podcast.

In fact, Jim & Sharon also recently interviewed Tom Mighell on their 42nd Digital Edge Podcast who authored the book “iPad in One Hour for Lawyers.” Lots of great tips in that book and well worth a listen.

With Lion getting ready to roar out the door soon (looks like tomorrow!!), I wanted to share a few thoughts on what’s going to be important and appealing to Mac-using lawyers.

My thoughts are based on the WWDC keynote and all of the blogs and reports that I’ve been reading over the last month – I have not downloaded or used Lion … yet.

I also plan to share some separate thoughts on iCloud and iOS 5 in the next two days.

Mission Control & Launchpad
Mission Control and Launchpad are interesting to me, but I will have to get hands-on before I decide whether they’re useful. I rarely interact with the Dock anymore because of Launchbar.

But I do LOVE Exposé as it is a brilliant way to find the window I need, or switch between running applications.

I see Mission Control as an awesome update to Exposé, but the proof will be in the pudding when it’s released.

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For the past two years, I’ve had the privilege of overseeing the “Mac Track” at the ABA TECHSHOW. Four years ago, Reid Trautz convinced the TECHSHOW Planning Board to incorporate Macs into the curriculum.

Now, four years later, we’ve more than doubled the number of Mac speakers, and we saw record attendance at every session throughout the first day of TECHSHOW which was Monday, April 11.

The first session was “Going Beyond Microsoft Word on the Mac” with David Sparks and Victor Medina.

David started the presentation with what he called a “love affair with text”. His tongue-in-cheek series of slides made some powerful points as David described the joys of simple text. It’s nice to be able to apply fancy formatting to text, but David emphasized the importance of getting thoughts down in text first, and then worry about the formatting later.

Victor spent most of his time providing the audience with an excellent overview of Apple’s own Pages, which is part of the iWork suite of software. Victor is a self-professed “Pages junkie” and it showed as he shared his excellent tips with the audience on generating beautiful documents with something other than Microsoft Word.

Victor also talked a little about how he has incorporated the ideas from the Typography for Lawyers book into his practice, which generated a little bit of discussion among the audience.

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If you’re hungering for some top-quality legal Mac education, the annual ABA TECHSHOW is the place to be on April 11. This year happens to be the 25th anniversary of ABA TECHSHOW and it’s delivering with a bang.

Four years ago, Reid Trautz convinced the TECHSHOW Planning Board to include two sessions that focused on lawyers using Macs.

Four years later, the “Mac Track” has expanded to a whole day of Mac-focused education, with several more sessions now covering the iPhone and iPad.

This year’s “Mac Track” takes place on Monday, April 11 featuring spectacular sessions taught by some the “rock stars” of the Mac-using legal community:

Going Beyond Microsoft Word on the Mac – 8:30-9:30
Focuses on the tools available on the Mac that give you the most power over text and composition. Victor Medina practices in New Jersey and is the tireless organizer of MILOfest. David Sparks (MacSparky) practices in California and just finished a most helpful tome entitled “Macs at Work.”

How Do You Manage Your Practice on a Mac? – 10:30-11:30
Covers the practice management options for Mac-using lawyers presented by Victor Media and Ben Stevens who practices in South Carolina and is the indomitable author of The Mac Lawyer blog.

Managing Your Documents on a Mac – 2:30-3:30
Provides a ton of tips and options for managing your documents on a Mac. Mark Metzger practices in the Chicago suburbs. Finis Price practices in Louisville, KY and also provides trial consulting through TechnoESQ.

Mac Power Users – 4:30-5:30
The last session where Finis Price, Ben Stevens, and myself (Brett Burney) will cover a slew of “power user” tips that will help you go beyond the basics of using your Mac.

The ABA TECHSHOW is just a few days away so if you use a Mac in your practice now, or are considering using a Mac, you should make all possible attempts to get to Chicago at least for Monday, April 11 so you won’t miss the “Mac Track.”

Not too mention that you’ll also have an amazing opportunities to talk face-to-face to folks from Clio, Rocket Matter, Daylite (Marketcirtcle) and more!

That same Monday of TECHSHOW also features the show’s keynote from Larry Lessig, who, by the way, is a huge Mac fan and uses Keynote very effectively in his talks.