Joining the ranks of law firms entering the app space, financial services law firm Murphy & McGonigle has announced the release of its “M&M Defend” app for clients who face the prospect of surprise investigations.

Acting as a type of quick guide, the app contains advice and instructions for those unexpectedly served with subpoenas, search warrants or interviews. The app has landing page with five buttons, three of which take a user to guides on how to handle either a surprise interview, a search warrant, or a grand jury subpoena. Each guide is written in bullet points and reads as successive instructions.

The two other buttons take a user to an introduction section that explains why the app is needed, or a section that has the contact information of Murphy & McGonigle attorneys who can help with clients facing surprise legal action.

Steven Feldman, an attorney at Murphy & McGonigle who directed the development of the app, noted that the tool is not web-based and can be used as an easily accessible offline guide.

Feldman added that having such information at one's fingertips is vital for “people who often don't have the first idea of what their rights are” and can mean “the difference between people going to jail and getting prosecuted or getting their life back.”

Murphy & McGonigle is offering the app free of charge to any iPhone or Android user, though it is likely to be downloaded primarily by those who already know or work with the firm.

Working in the financial services and regulatory sector, with clients from banks, hedge funds, and the financial tech industry, the firm has its fair share of clients that may be under threat of potential investigations,

“Hedge fund individuals, for example, were in the crosshairs for a while on the issue of insider trading,” Feldman said. “How [officials] were carrying out those insider trading investigations were coming to people's houses for surprise interviews, and they were conducting search warrants at their offices.”

While a straight-forward tool with a simple interface, the M&M Defend App wasn't built “particularly quickly,” Feldman noted. Relying on the firm's in-house computer programmer, the law firm first released a prototype web-based version to elicit user feedback on its design and functionality. From there, they released the app through the Apple Store and Google Play.

But getting the app, which is now in version 2.0, up to par required more than just building out the code. “The content was extremely important, and we shared the content internally with all the different folks who would have an interest in it,” Feldman said.

Murphy & McGonigle relied on some of its own lawyers who were former SEC attorneys, including a number in the trading and markets section of the SEC, to help write the content, he added.

The app isn't the only tech project developed by Murphy & McGonigle. The firm has also launched databases that track mortgage-backed securities litigation in the U.S. What's more, the firm recently launched the Blockchain Law Center, a website that posts the up-to-date developments in the blockchain space and hosts a resource center and articles written by Murphy & McGonigle lawyers.

The “M&M Defend App” is also far from the only such tool in the legal market. Just last year Baker McKenzie released its “Antitrust Dawn Raid app,” which acts as a similar guide for those under the prospect of surprise investigations.

Other law firm-created apps have been recently released for other areas of legal advice and services. Reed Smith, for instance, developed RespondeRS, an app designed to help in-house legal professionals determine what data breach notification laws apply should they suffer a cybersecurity incident. Weil, Gotshal & Manges also launched an alumni networking app to connect its present and past attorneys. Similarly, Locke Lord added to its app products by releasing a “Brexit News” app to keep its clients informed on the latest Brexit developments.