---
title: "Legal Secretary and Administrative Assistant"
description: "Perform secretarial duties using legal terminology, procedures, and documents. Prepare legal papers and correspondence, such as summonses, complaints…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/legal-secretary-and-administrative-assistant"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Legal Secretary and Administrative Assistant

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-6012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-6012.00

Perform secretarial duties using legal terminology, procedures, and documents. Prepare legal papers and correspondence, such as summonses, complaints, motions, and subpoenas. May also assist with legal research.

Also advertised as: Confidential Secretary; Legal Administrative Assistant (Legal Admin Assistant); Legal Administrator (Legal Admin); Legal Coordinator; Legal Management Assistant; Legal Office Support Assistant; Legal Practice Assistant; Legal Secretary.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $55,570 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $26.72/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $36,500 to $91,730, with the middle half between $44,450 and $71,970
- **Total US employment:** 156,280
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -5.8% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 19,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 17/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 156,280 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $36,500 |
| 25th | $44,450 |
| 50th (median) | $55,570 |
| 75th | $71,970 |
| 90th | $91,730 |
| Mean (average) | $60,620 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DC | $99,280 | $90,336 | 1,940 |
| NY | $72,230 | $66,929 | 9,800 |
| CT | $66,220 | $63,913 | 1,090 |
| DE | $66,130 | $66,257 | 980 |
| MN | $63,180 | $64,063 | 2,410 |
| NJ | $63,080 | $57,975 | 4,160 |
| RI | $63,020 | $61,615 | 390 |
| CA | $62,860 | $56,774 | 27,470 |
| MA | $62,120 | $58,738 | 4,020 |
| MD | $61,440 | $58,537 | 1,670 |
| AK | $61,280 | $59,868 | 660 |
| OR | $59,610 | $57,672 | 1,590 |
| CO | $59,490 | $57,728 | 2,030 |
| WA | $58,360 | $54,535 | 3,950 |
| NM | $57,800 | $62,682 | 1,400 |

37 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 52 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/legal-secretary-and-administrative-assistant/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/legal-secretary-and-administrative-assistant.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 156,300 in the 2024–2034 base year to 147,300 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 9,000 jobs, or -5.8%. Declining: -5.8% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 19,600 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 48.1% |
| High School Diploma | 17.3% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 14.3% |
| Some College Courses | 13.2% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 7.0% |

## What the work involves

- Mail, fax, or arrange for delivery of legal correspondence to clients, witnesses, and court officials.
- Make photocopies of correspondence, documents, and other printed matter.
- Receive and place telephone calls.
- Organize and maintain law libraries, documents, and case files.
- Schedule and make appointments.
- Draft and type office memos.
- Prepare, proofread, or process legal documents, such as summonses, subpoenas, complaints, appeals, motions, or pretrial agreements.
- Prepare and distribute invoices to bill clients or pay account expenses.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Administrative — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.69 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.42 |
| S — Social | 3.17 |
| I — Investigative | 2.91 |
| A — Artistic | 1.55 |
| R — Realistic | 1.41 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 79.8 |
| ESFJ | 77.0 |
| ISFJ | 72.7 |
| ISTJ | 69.8 |
| ENTJ | 62.4 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Paralegal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paralegal) — median $62,890
- [Secretary and Administrative Assistant, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive](https://nuecareer.com/careers/secretary-and-administrative-assistant) — median $47,540
- [Court, Municipal, and License Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-municipal-and-license-clerk) — median $48,700
- [Executive Secretary and Executive Administrative Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/executive-secretary-and-executive-administrative-assistant) — median $76,590
- [Court Reporter and Simultaneous Captioner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/court-reporter-and-simultaneous-captioner) — median $72,420
- [Correspondence Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/correspondence-clerk) — median $46,800
- [Office Clerk, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/office-clerk-general) — median $45,010
- [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) — median $54,210
- [Receptionist and Information Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/receptionist-and-information-clerk) — median $38,010
- [Medical Records Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-records-specialist) — median $51,140

### Legal Secretary and Administrative Assistant compared with

- [Paralegal vs Legal Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/paralegal-vs-legal-assistant) — side by side on BLS wage percentiles, projected growth, openings and entry requirements

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/legal-secretary-and-administrative-assistant