This is a question Richard Susskind, author of The End of Lawyers? and visiting Professor of Internet Studies at the Oxford Internet Institute, asks as he stands in a queue looping around the iconic Apple shop in Regent Street, London.

“Genial bouncers are distributing bottles of water. The mood is pre-rock-concert. At the back of the queue I pass the time on my BlackBerry, a little furtively because it is now looking rather retro,” Susskind writes in an article in London’s The Times newspaper.

Having transferred family photos and noting the iPad is less intrusive than a laptop, Susskind summises that “it is unlikely (yet) to be a replacement for most legal laptops”.

Susskind writes: “The big problem for lawyers… is that nether Microsoft Work nor Powerpoint runs on the iPad.”

Various work-arounds are available, through Apple’s equivalents, “but most legal practitioners will find this reeks of hassle”.

“For lawyers indifferent to high-tech devices and who like immediate gratification from their technology, the first iteration of the iPad unlike the BlackBerry, will not dominate the legal world,” Susskind writes.

While for the rest of humanity the iPad is “a game-changer”, according to Susskind, “only for the gadget-liking lawyer will the presently configured iPad be a compulsory accessory”.