Anyone played with an iPad yet? Obiter had one thrust into his palms by a beaming chum only last week, but embarrassingly mistook it for an oversized iPhone (‘Where’s the earpiece’ rather gave the game away).

Still, it seems the folk at national firm Eversheds are rather more tech savvy. Last week they were trumpeting a ‘groundbreaking’ deal, dubbed ‘Eversheds Anywhere’, whereby all of the firm’s lawyers will be given an iPad. The firm wants to ‘allow lawyers to review documents, host virtual meetings, arrange schedules and access mail and business intelligence from wherever they may be in the world.’

So in Eversheds’ eyes, the iPad is the new BlackBerry. You can certainly do a lot more with it (apart from make calls, as hapless Obiter discovered). It looks slick, modern, and it fits in your… well, briefcase, handbag, manbag, or whatever.

Having on-demand connectivity, and allowing lawyers to ‘access the data they need 24/7,’ seems to make business sense. However, Obiter suspects that much of that 24/7 will involve holiday booking, football score checking, game playing, app downloading, and then perhaps some document review (such as the latest Andy McNab classic). Functionality breeds temptation, does it not?

Image courtesy of Apple