Personal Laptops for Research Forum

[bruinfan10]

Question for current clerks - I'm curious about the IT situation at your courthouses. Are you allowed to do your research from a personal laptop, do they issue you a work laptop, or do you normally work on some kind of terminal in chambers? I'm thinking about upgrading my laptop in the near future, and I want to know whether I have to get a workhouse (otherwise I'd probably just get something fun/tablet-y).

[A. Nony Mouse]

Everywhere I've been/seen, clerks get a desktop. I've never seen a term clerk get issued a laptop, but I can't say no courts do that - I've just never seen it. I do know of career clerks who regularly worked part of the week from home being issued a laptop, though I think there "issued" is more like whatever extra machine they could scrounge. At least in my district, working on a personal computer (laptop or desktop) required installing remote access software to access the court network (so you can access the files on your work computer, but particularly so you can access the docket and all the pleadings). I believe, too, that remote access is required for security reasons - you were supposed to only work on court stuff on the court network, which is properly protected. (I'll admit to very occasionally e-mailing myself a file at home and just working on it on my computer, but I probably shouldn't have.)

I didn't have to work at home very often - a few times when I needed to get work done over the weekend, and once when my judge let me work long-distance between Christmas and New Year's. So I didn't really need anything special at home. But that will probably vary by judge. (E.g. someone like Kosinski will work you to death, but it doesn't sound like he'd let you go home to do it!)

[ClerkAdvisor]

This varies from court to court, and from judge to judge.

In both my clerkships, I have had a court-issued laptop (with docking stations and 2-monitor setups). In addition, I've been able to remote-desktop in from home in both courts.

[bruinfan10]

Thank you both very much for the information.