1. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
Have you ever wondered how busy lawyers handle all of their casework and get ready for trials? The answer is that they do not do all of the work alone. Many law offices rely on the work of a legal office assistant to manage administrative tasks and free up lawyers for more complex legal proceedings.
As a legal office assistant, you would take care of tasks such as entering data, drafting legal documents such as subpoenas, and researching information in special legal reference systems. You would also communicate with clients, court administrators, and other relevant parties to ensure that all investigations and cases go as smoothly as possible.
To be a legal office assistant, you don't need a law degree. In fact, you could use this position to test out if you enjoy working in the law before going to law school. For most positions, all you need is a bachelor's or associate's degree, some previous administrative experience, and a passion for the law.
There are certain skills that many legal office assistants have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, computer skills and research skills.
If you're interested in becoming a legal office assistant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 48.5% of legal office assistants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 5.5% of legal office assistants have master's degrees. Even though most legal office assistants have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of legal assistant you might progress to a role such as paralegal eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title senior paralegal.
What Am I Worth?
There are several types of legal office assistant, including:
Role:
Role:
Role:
Mouse over a state to see the number of active legal office assistant jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where legal office assistants earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
---|---|---|---|
1 | California | 2,314 | $44,018 |
2 | Florida | 1,858 | $27,045 |
3 | Texas | 1,340 | $33,713 |
4 | New York | 1,272 | $36,926 |
5 | Illinois | 913 | $33,898 |
6 | Pennsylvania | 912 | $36,073 |
7 | Ohio | 911 | $29,690 |
8 | North Carolina | 768 | $24,428 |
9 | Massachusetts | 738 | $37,561 |
10 | Georgia | 677 | $28,493 |
11 | Virginia | 639 | $34,024 |
12 | Michigan | 638 | $32,086 |
13 | New Jersey | 545 | $39,626 |
14 | Washington | 495 | $35,952 |
15 | Colorado | 487 | $34,371 |
16 | Arizona | 482 | $28,732 |
17 | Minnesota | 476 | $33,874 |
18 | Indiana | 446 | $24,015 |
19 | Maryland | 428 | $30,883 |
20 | Tennessee | 390 | $27,462 |
21 | Wisconsin | 378 | $28,628 |
22 | Missouri | 372 | $25,582 |
23 | South Carolina | 289 | $24,168 |
24 | Oregon | 277 | $32,480 |
25 | Connecticut | 253 | $39,912 |
26 | Utah | 231 | $32,445 |
27 | Kentucky | 216 | $29,267 |
28 | Alabama | 214 | $27,240 |
29 | Iowa | 207 | $28,934 |
30 | Louisiana | 183 | $25,989 |
31 | Nevada | 150 | $35,628 |
32 | Oklahoma | 148 | $26,665 |
33 | Arkansas | 147 | $25,210 |
34 | Kansas | 138 | $27,926 |
35 | New Hampshire | 130 | $37,803 |
36 | Idaho | 121 | $30,608 |
37 | New Mexico | 118 | $28,864 |
38 | Nebraska | 116 | $30,815 |
39 | Alaska | 115 | $38,281 |
40 | West Virginia | 109 | $32,120 |
41 | Mississippi | 102 | $29,368 |
42 | Montana | 84 | $28,313 |
43 | North Dakota | 82 | $30,154 |
44 | Maine | 82 | $29,568 |
45 | Rhode Island | 66 | $33,310 |
46 | Delaware | 61 | $34,519 |
47 | Wyoming | 55 | $26,291 |
48 | Vermont | 50 | $31,054 |
49 | Hawaii | 49 | $39,856 |
50 | South Dakota | 49 | $31,518 |
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
Fort Worth, TX • Private
In-State Tuition
$30,300
Enrollment
1,445
Boston, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$53,948
Enrollment
17,238
Evanston, IL • Private
In-State Tuition
$54,568
Enrollment
8,451
Stanford, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,354
Enrollment
7,083
Saint Paul, MN • Private
In-State Tuition
$41,290
Enrollment
2,077
Cambridge, MA • Private
In-State Tuition
$50,420
Enrollment
7,582
Washington, DC • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,230
Enrollment
12,161
New York, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$19,870
Enrollment
5,243
University Park, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$18,454
Enrollment
40,108
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 8.8% of legal office assistants listed management system on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and computer skills are important as well.
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Legal Office Assistant templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Legal Office Assistant resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a legal office assistant. The best states for people in this position are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, and New Jersey. Legal office assistants make the most in California with an average salary of $44,018. Whereas in Connecticut and Hawaii, they would average $39,912 and $39,856, respectively. While legal office assistants would only make an average of $39,626 in New Jersey, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. District of Columbia
$42,309
Avg. Salary
2. California
$44,018
Avg. Salary
3. Alaska
$38,281
Avg. Salary
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Social Security Administration | $42,773 | $20.56 | 4 |
2 | Minnehaha County | $40,689 | $19.56 | 5 |
3 | Hinckley Allen | $39,794 | $19.13 | 3 |
4 | Department of Homeland Security | $39,657 | $19.07 | 3 |
5 | Hoffman Construction | $38,969 | $18.74 | 3 |
6 | SSC Engineering | $37,342 | $17.95 | 3 |
7 | Washington State University | $37,166 | $17.87 | 12 |
8 | Liberty Mutual Insurance | $37,085 | $17.83 | 4 |
9 | Texas Department of Transportation | $36,896 | $17.74 | 8 |
10 | Ford Motor | $36,767 | $17.68 | 3 |