Computer situation

[mildredsmom]

Do lawyers use their own laptops for work or company laptops? Looking to upgrade my laptop before 1L but unsure how much I want to spend if I’ll only be using as my primary for 3 years. 

[Jaggers]

As of about 2-3 years ago we aren’t able to use our own computer to access work stuff. We have to use the laptop we’re given (or our phone apps like outlook, but those are fairly limited). 

[PulpFiction]

17 minutes ago, mildredsmom said:

Do lawyers use their own laptops for work or company laptops? Looking to upgrade my laptop before 1L but unsure how much I want to spend if I’ll only be using as my primary for 3 years. 

Get yourself a quality laptop before law school, it'll be worth it. That doesn't mean you need to spend a big chunk of change on it. If you're a sucker like me and what seems like most of my peers, you'll buy a Macbook of some sort. You can find a quality laptop for $700-1000 that will comfortably last you the three years. You want something you can rely on come exam time, that isn't freezing up and giving you technical problems. 

Regarding work and personal laptop: I would highly advise against using your personal laptop for work, ever. Keep work and personal laptops separate. It's likely your workplace will provide you a laptop to use, and if they don't, you can buy a decent one and ask to be reimbursed for it, or just eat the financial hit. 

Also, if you buy a good laptop now, it could last you much longer than the 3 years of law school. Even if you get a work laptop, you'll still want a personal one to do your own stuff on - browse the web, netflix, etc, I'm still using my macbook from 1L and it's been 5 years, no issues. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by PulpFiction

[Rusty Iron Ring]

I got myself one of them Surface laptop/tablet hybrid thingies and I absolutely love it.  I have a dock on my desk with 2 more monitors, keyboard, mouse etc, and I just pop the tablet into it and have a full desktop. Kind of pricey for a laptop, but not pricey for a desktop + laptop + tablet

[epeeist]

On 7/2/2022 at 10:36 AM, mildredsmom said:

Do lawyers use their own laptops for work or company laptops? Looking to upgrade my laptop before 1L but unsure how much I want to spend if I’ll only be using as my primary for 3 years. 

Caveat: I'm many years out of law school so pay more attention to others!

My last computer purchase within past year was a desktop system for better gaming/graphics (and larger monitor I can connect to work laptop when working at home). I previously had a gaming laptop and found it limited and kind of pointless, if travelling for work I take work laptop and don't have time for games and/or kill a bit of time on my phone, if vacation I have better things to do than game in hotel room, if at home I might as well have a less expensive more durable more advanced desktop system.

Given the cost of law school and living expenses for 3 years, the far far smaller cost of a better/more reliable/easier-to-use laptop for 3 years to help you get through law school seems like a no-brainer to me.

Though are there still educational discounts that make it advantageous to wait until actually a student to buy/upgrade? And/or wait to see if e.g. current laptop fine for use in classes but working on papers etc. prefer a desktop?

[Khrisse]

I second what several have said about buying a good laptop for school, if you don't already have one. 

Re: work - in my current non-legal government job, I've been using my own laptop to access a virtual desktop on my employer's servers since almost the beginning of the pandemic. To me, this seems like the best of all worlds - their data stays on their system, the virtual desktop is fully functional, I'm able to access it reliably via Internet, and I get to use my own MacBook Air, which I love. I've connected it to an external display, so I've got mad screen real estate. I've had my laptop for about a year and a half now, and I hope it'll take me right through three years of law skewl and hopefully beyond. 

[hiccups]

On 7/2/2022 at 7:36 AM, mildredsmom said:

Do lawyers use their own laptops for work or company laptops? Looking to upgrade my laptop before 1L but unsure how much I want to spend if I’ll only be using as my primary for 3 years. 

If you haven't started 1L yet, by the time you are a lawyer you might need a new laptop again. 

[OntheVerge]

I bought my laptop for 1L. I seem to recall a tax write-off for $1000.00 or something like that was available in Ontario to law students, so I wanted to make sure I had a new one. No issues during law school, unlike some of my friends with their older ones that had to be plugged in all the time in class in order for them to take notes or write exams. Then I used it throughout articling and when Covid hit, started doing Zoom meetings with it until our work computers got upgraded. Overall, it's been over 7 years and so far, it's still going strong. Now that my work computer is set up for virtual meetings, it's just for use at home.