"I'm pretty sure we were the first, if not only major law firm, to do it," says COO Arthur Gurwitz. "I think it was important to be first with the iPad. I call it brand enhancement."

But behind the "brand enhancement" and despite the elegant simplicity of the iPad, Proskauer's IS department was faced with a great many difficult choices. In other words, iPad enterprise adoption is anything but easy.

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At law firms, the technology spend ranks as the third largest line item behind people and office space. Its place on the budget sheet, though, is well justified: Lawyers rely heavily on computers to deliver services that are at the core of a law firm's business. All of this underscores the huge risk Proskauer took to adopt the new-fangled iPad as a lawyer's go-to computer.

Today, more than 500 Proskauer lawyers use iPads to create super-slick PowerPoint slides, Excel Spreadsheets filled with sky-high figures, and wordy Word documents. Lawyers pass this electronic paperwork back and forth among clients. They even present information on their iPads to judges.