Paralegal Case Researcher computer….

[AdamNC]

My daughter just got the job she always wanted after graduating in Criminal Justice. She will be a paralegal for a criminal law firm and the flat out told her the first few years she will be doing case research and such. The law firm will pay for up to $2750 towards a laptop. The will give here a drive for each case so it can be easily be stored. They use Macs, and want her to get one also. She currently has a 2016 MBP that’s dying. I told her I will pay up to a certain price. They use primarily Google Suite and such. She will have a lot of tabs open. She prefers Safari over Chrome. Sometimes Word. I am thinking this would be good. Anything better for under 3500?

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'm thinking the 1TB SSD upgrade.

 

[chrfr]

View attachment 2312867 My daughter just got the job she always wanted after graduating in Criminal Justice. She will be a paralegal for a criminal law firm and the flat out told her the first few years she will be doing case research and such. The law firm will pay for up to $2750 towards a laptop. The will give here a drive for each case so it can be easily be stored. They use Macs, and want her to get one also. She currently has a 2016 MBP that’s dying. I told her I will pay up to a certain price. They use primarily Google Suite and such. She will have a lot of tabs open. She prefers Safari over Chrome. Sometimes Word. I am thinking this would be good. Anything better for under 3500?

This is tremendously overkill for the work she'll be doing. A 15" MacBook Air would be more than enough computer for this usage, and it'd fit comfortably into the $2750 the company pays. A fully loaded 15" Air is $2728 before sales tax, but the 24GB of RAM and 2TB of storage won't be necessary to run Google web apps. I'd go that route before putting any personal money into a computer that presumably remains property of the company in the event of a job change.

 

[genexx]

I thaught exactly the same as @chrfr , but would also go to a Macstore to see what attracts your Daughter because she will use it for Years.

No to underestimate is the Pure Silence of an MBA on the other Hand she will never stress the MBP to make the fans come up spinning loud.

A 16GB Ram 1TB Storage MBA M2 should do the Job @ ease.
Get an additional 27" Monitor BT Keyboard and Trackpad to use it in Clamshell Mode.

 

[laptech]

Get a machine that you can max out the storage because whilst the machine you mentioned is good for the here and now, it needs to be future proof for the coming years and anyone that's done research before knows that research can take up large chunks of storage space and the last thing your daughter needs would be to be complaining a few months in that her storage drive is full. Yes she can use external storage or even icloud but where does the law firm stand on this? Also would your daughter be happy carting around external storage drives in her bag.

Even though I said to max out the storage, it comes with a cavate and that is the possibility of the macbook going faulty and thus your daughter losing all the research stuff on the storage because the storage on these new macbooks are hard soldered to the motherboard (no replaceable) thus what is the law firms policy on data retention/storage? will she be expected to back up research data to the firms icloud (if they have one) or will she be expected to constantly back up research data/info to external storage to prevent loss of info if the macbook was to ever break. If that is the case and the law firm requires their paralegals to constantly back up their work then there would be no need to max out the storage on the mac book.

@genexx also has a great idea of a monitor and keyboard and trackpad (on a desk presumably) in clamshell mode so your daughter would be able to use the macbook like a desktop computer. It would make it so much easier on the eyes because staring at the laptop screens for hours on end will eventually start to affect your daughters eyesight.

 

[kevcube]

View attachment 2312867 My daughter just got the job she always wanted after graduating in Criminal Justice. She will be a paralegal for a criminal law firm and the flat out told her the first few years she will be doing case research and such. The law firm will pay for up to $2750 towards a laptop. The will give here a drive for each case so it can be easily be stored. They use Macs, and want her to get one also. She currently has a 2016 MBP that’s dying. I told her I will pay up to a certain price. They use primarily Google Suite and such. She will have a lot of tabs open. She prefers Safari over Chrome. Sometimes Word. I am thinking this would be good. Anything better for under 3500?

way overkill. she'll be doing primarily web browsing and document editing. best machine for her is an m2 mba with no more than 16gb ram.

 

[Fishrrman]

MacBook Pro 14", 16gb RAM, 1tb SSD.
(this is "the base model", but with the 1tb SSD upgrade, which adds $200)
Well within your budget and it should last a long time.

A smart choice and those for whom she works will notice this right away...

 

[AdamNC]

She ordered this configuration…..it should arrive right after Thanksgiving. She should get several years of good use out of it.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Get a machine that you can max out the storage because whilst the machine you mentioned is good for the here and now, it needs to be future proof for the coming years and anyone that's done research before knows that research can take up large chunks of storage space and the last thing your daughter needs would be to be complaining a few months in that her storage drive is full. Yes she can use external storage or even icloud but where does the law firm stand on this? Also would your daughter be happy carting around external storage drives in her bag.

Even though I said to max out the storage, it comes with a cavate and that is the possibility of the macbook going faulty and thus your daughter losing all the research stuff on the storage because the storage on these new macbooks are hard soldered to the motherboard (no replaceable) thus what is the law firms policy on data retention/storage? will she be expected to back up research data to the firms icloud (if they have one) or will she be expected to constantly back up research data/info to external storage to prevent loss of info if the macbook was to ever break. If that is the case and the law firm requires their paralegals to constantly back up their work then there would be no need to max out the storage on the mac book.

@genexx also has a great idea of a monitor and keyboard and trackpad (on a desk presumably) in clamshell mode so your daughter would be able to use the macbook like a desktop computer. It would make it so much easier on the eyes because staring at the laptop screens for hours on end will eventually start to affect your daughter’s eyesight.

The company is paying. There is really no need for dad to spend any money, especially for future proofing as there is no such thing.

 

[Apple_Robert]

She ordered this configuration…..it should arrive right after Thanksgiving. She should get several years of good use out of it.

That will be great for many years to come.

 

[AdamNC]

Each case will be handled on a separate external drive so it can be filed away and kept for future needs. Only things that will be kept on the computer will be programs they use and such. But never case information. Good policy if you ask me.

 

[chrfr]

Each case will be handled on a separate external drive so it can be filed away and kept for future needs. Only things that will be kept on the computer will be programs they use and such. But never case information. Good policy if you ask me.

Unless the data on each of those disks is copied somewhere else too, that’s a tremendously risky procedure which seemingly depends on a single disk not having any data loss with no backup.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Unless the data on each of those disks is copied somewhere else too, that’s a tremendously risky procedure which seemingly depends on a single disk not having any data loss with no backup.

I'm going to put my money on the law firm having security procedures that meet or exceed their legal requirements.