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Investing in hardware for your office is stressful and taxing. Thousands of dollars can be spent for a system that will get little to no use, or even worse, make your practice less efficient. Reliance on multiple computers is unnecessary and inefficient. Get a good laptop, buy the peripherals, and stick with it. Don’t make the mistake of buying a desktop computer.
One laptop to rule them all.
Unlike a number of other professionals in the legal field, criminal defense attorneys are different. Criminal defense lawyers leave their offices frequently. They go to court often. They visit jails and prisons. We work out of hotel rooms when jury trials land us hours away from home for days at a time. Often, we bring our work home when court and jail visits leave us insufficient time at the office.
Our practice requires a computer that can go with us rather than multiple devices that stay tethered to physical locations.
Avoid the extra cost of having multiple computers
Multiple computers means extra cost to you: (1) cost of the device; (2) time cost of maintaining and updating multiple devices; and (3) additional costs for app and software licenses.
It should go without saying: Your work requires a laptop. A desktop computer is an extra piece of equipment to purchase and then maintain. The fewer devices you have to keep up to date and maintain, the easier your already busy life will be.
The extra cost of having a desktop computer doesn’t necessarily stop with the purchase price of the device. We are now in a world of subscription based apps with licenses tied to those subscriptions. The more devices you have, the more licenses you’ll need, and the more you’ll pay. Software subscription costs add up quickly. Don’t exacerbate the problem.
Multiple computers create real world issues
I realize that subscriptions to some services like Adobe Creative Cloud may allow you to log in and out of multiple devices while paying a single fee, but it’s a giant pain and can create major inconveniences. If you play the login/logout game toggling your license between multiple devices, you will get burned. You’ll logout of Adobe on your laptop to work late at night on your desktop in your home office. The next morning when you take your laptop to a jail or a courthouse built like a bomb shelter and you have no internet access, you’ll find yourself having to use Firefox to view your PDFs because Adobe won’t let you. Using a single laptop exclusively eliminates this issue.
Even with the ease that cloud-based storage provides, the reality is that syncing across devices and to the cloud doesn’t always work as intended. Just as is the case with the login/logout game, cloud based syncing services create real issues in our practice area.
Discovery is becoming increasingly voluminous in what used to be considered simple federal prosecutions. Selective syncing and downloading of folders and files to a computer hard drive while storing everything in the cloud has necessarily become a norm for many practitioners.
If you download discovery to review on your desktop because you have a client meeting the following day at a jail, your client will be disappointed when you show up with your laptop because the discovery wouldn’t have been downloaded to it as well. Because you’ll be in a jail, you’ll have no ability to download the discovery on site and you’ll have wasted a trip and a morning. A one laptop system eliminates the possibility of this situation.
I’m not saying you have to use a tiny screen when you’re working at a desk.
A widescreen where multiple apps are viewable side by side creates an efficient workflow. Drafting becomes much easier when Word can be open on one side of the screen and your research on the other. You don’t have to give this up with a laptop.
When buying a desktop, peripherals such as a keyboard, monitor, and mouse are going to be purchased. Buy and utilize these items in your office (and home office) with your laptop.
Docking stations have been a solid way to connect your laptop in the past, but are becoming an increasingly unnecessary cost. Bluetooth already makes connection to a full size keyboard and mouse seamless. Connection to a monitor is similarly painless involving a single cord. (A number of monitors include Thunderbolt or USB-C plugin options that simultaneously charge your laptop to free cable clutter).
Create efficiency and eliminate the clutter and costs
Utilizing one laptop rather than a laptop and a desktop eliminates issues with syncing and situations where the documents you need are noticeably absent from your device when you need them.
A one laptop solution saves money on hardware and apps, reduces extra unnecessary devices from your office, and hopefully will hope save your sanity.
DON’T BUY A DESKTOP!
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