Does Your Firm Let You Use Macs? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Mine doesn't. Our PCs, especially for younger lawyers who grew up in an Apple ecosystem, can feel clunky, glitchy, and just overall hard-to-use. I'm wondering, mostly out of curiosity, if there are firms that give their associates Macs.

[Anonymous User]

Mine doesn't. Our PCs, especially for younger lawyers who grew up in an Apple ecosystem, can feel clunky, glitchy, and just overall hard-to-use. I'm wondering, mostly out of curiosity, if there are firms that give their associates Macs.

I know one computer wiz who used to use a mac at my otherwise exclusively PC firm. The firm let him do it, but it was up to him to buy the mac and ensure that it was compatible with all of the firm's various software requirements. I doubt your average lawyer could do that. He left a few years ago and nobody else has tried since.

He has since left, and I have my doubts that would even be feasible today. Clients are demanding increasing levels of security, and I think the firm would see another hardware platform - however safe - as a liability.

With that said, there are a lot of people (mostly partners) who use iPads for some of their daily tasks (e.g., email, marking up PDFs, etc.). You might consider asking about using one of those for a limited set of tasks.

[Anonymous User]

GDC does.

[Anonymous User]

I wish. I’d bill so much more because I would work more because work wouldn’t suck as much.

[nealric]

Most corporate (including law firm) IT departments are using device management tools that are part of the PC ecosystem. Moreover, they don't want to have to support devices on too many different operating systems. They do tend to support iOS due to phones, but Mac OS never got that type of support. Things might be more flexible at boutiques that are too small to have a dedicated IT department.

[RedNewJersey]

Mine does.

[Anonymous User]

We have firm-issued Mac laptops (or PC laptops, which some people prefer) that include a remote desktop application that connects to our main, Windows-based computing environment. If you are trying to access our document management systems, Intranet, etc., you need to be on the Windows side, but you can email, go on the Internet, and do work in MS Office in a Mac environment as well.

For what it's worth, firms that do work for Apple (which includes GDC) may have a business reason to allow or require Mac use. I don't think they would like it if you showed up at an important meeting with a Lenovo laptop.

[Anonymous User]

Debevoise does

[Anonymous User]

Susman does.