Imagine This Law School Laptop Scenario
Your adrenaline is flowing. Slight moisture forms on your fingertips when you’re nervous, when you’re ready to perform. You put in hours reviewing. You look down at your color-coded cheat sheet. Rule statements are in red. Case names in blue. The person next to you is nervously tapping their foot. You’re focused though. Sitting in front of your laptop waiting for the proctor to say “begin” on your law school final exam.
“You have three hours to complete the exam. Begin.“
You click start on your law school exam software. Nothing happens. The cursor won’t move. You can’t click away. You feel the ice cold terror shoot down your spine like lightning. Your computer is frozen.
You nervously raise you hand for the proctor to come help you. He slowly waddles over. He looks at your screen and sees the cursor frozen on the start button. “Looks like you’ll have to write the exam.” Then, the proctor hands you two blue books.
You are trying to stay calm, but how can you? The entire semester you’ve prepared for this one exam. Moreover, you know this subject backwards and forwards. But, now you’re limited by how fast you can hand write.
Five minutes have already gone by. You hear your classmates typing away. They’re on their way to an A in this class and you haven’t even read the first question. Despite your hard work studying, now you’ll have to make up lost ground and do so by hand.

Unfortunately, this law school laptop nightmare is all too common in law school.
You will be surprised to learn that many law students spend tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on law school, but become stingy on their laptop. They think that their ten year old laptop can work. Believing it’ll be okay if it doesn’t have the most up to date software. Even still, they think the fact that they back up 10,000+ photos on it won’t matter.
The laptop is the most consequential law school supply. Not because of the note-taking ability, the storage, or the ability to research. Your laptop is the most consequential law school supply because it is what you take to battle with you! This is your sword, horse, and armor all in one.
Your laptop runs the law school exam testing software. The software that you unleash your incredible legal wisdom on. In other words, it is the gateway for taking your legal analysis and showing it to your professor. And, ten times out of ten he will prefer that your law school exam answer is clear, easy to understand, and typed.
Handwriting is a mess. It is slow. You can’t backspace. Furthermore, you have to cross out your mistakes. Have we mentioned handwriting is slow?
If you want the best possible law school grades, you need a reliable laptop. And, you need your laptop to work when it is showtime.
That is why we say that the best laptop for law school is the reliable laptop. For example, the laptop that will load exam software every time. That never freezes, never crashes. The laptop that won’t run an autoupdate at a random time in the middle of an exam. You need a reliable laptop because it will guarantee that your hard work, your hours of studying, your late night rule reviewing pays off.
A reliable laptop will ensure that you are able to prove to your professor that you have the legal knowledge to deserve an A in your law school course.
Nothing will be left to chance if you have a reliable laptop. Additionally, you won’t sit around and wonder “Could I have scored a higher grade if I didn’t have to hand write? If I was able to get more analysis on the page before time ran out?”
Conclusion – Get a reliable laptop!
Get a reliable laptop. There are many out there. Newer is usually better than older. Well known brands (Apple, Dell, Microsoft) are usually loaded with operating systems that are regularly updated and compatible with law school exam software.
Check out our top 5 law school laptop recommendations HERE.
Additionally, as far as law school exam reliability goes, our top recommendation is the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch. You will see many of the other top law students using MacBooks as well.
