How To Become An Executive Legal Secretary: What It Is and Career Path

What is an executive legal secretary and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an executive legal secretary. For example, did you know that they make an average of $21.1 an hour? That's $43,888 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow -8% and produce -286,900 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreExecutive Legal SecretaryUS Average

Salary

3.4

Avg. Salary $43,888

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.7

Growth rate -8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.87%

Asian 2.73%

Black or African American 7.45%

Hispanic or Latino 13.17%

Unknown 3.98%

White 71.80%

Gender

female 94.38%

male 5.63%

Age - 56

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 56

Stress level

4.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.0

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.2

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an executive legal secretary

Explore executive legal secretary education requirements

Most common executive legal secretary degrees

Bachelor's

42.5 %

Associate

33.2 %

High School Diploma

11.1 %

Start to develop specific executive legal secretary skills

Skills	Percentages
Litigation	10.46%
Law Firm	9.46%
Travel Arrangements	8.97%
Proofread	8.96%
Expense Reports	6.85%

Complete relevant executive legal secretary training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New executive legal secretaries learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an executive legal secretary based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real executive legal secretary resumes.

Research executive legal secretary duties and responsibilities

Manage a team of five to prepare over 100 UCC-1 forms to meet a 48 hour deadline.
Prepare daily transcription from dictation.
Send out discovery (interrogatories, requests for production, etc . )
Log heavy volume of summonses and complaints to prepare for express delivery.

Get executive legal secretary experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become an executive legal secretary. The most common roles before becoming an executive legal secretary include legal secretary, legal assistant team lead and administrative assistant.

Prepare your executive legal secretary resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your executive legal secretary resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an executive legal secretary resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable executive legal secretary resume templates

Build a professional executive legal secretary resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your executive legal secretary resume.