iPad lures business users in law, medicine and other fields

Computerworld – Apple’s iPad tablet is being used by doctors, lawyers and businesspeople to ease their workloads, but many believe the popular touchscreen device can’t yet replace a laptop for functions such as writing long documents.

The IT shop at Chicago-based law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal allows the firm’s lawyers to use iPads, and up to 100 of the 800 attorneys around the globe are already doing so — at their own expense.

“The iPad has real value for attorneys servicing our clients, of being able to access corporate data and document libraries immediately and [doing so] a lot quicker than on a laptop,” said Michael Barnas, the firm’s director of application services. “They take iPads and iPhones everywhere.”

Traveling attorneys, especially, appreciate the fact that the iPad boots up faster than a laptop, he said.