How To Become A Legal Technician: What It Is and Career Path

What is a legal technician and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Legal technicians assist clients in legal matters, although themselves are not licensed lawyers. They research facts related to their clients' legal cases and provide information summarizing complicated matters and delivering them in an accessible language.

You will explain the course of legal procedures to your clients and inform them about necessary documents to submit and deadlines to respect. You will review legal documents and make sure they are filled in correctly, and advise clients on the possible outcomes of various courses of legal action.

You do not need a law degree to take on this role, but you will have to get some level of legal education, gain a certain number of academic credits in legal studies or complete a paralegal program. The exact requirements of this vary by state. You will need excellent communication skills and know how to handle confidential information. Your ethical code must be impeccable, respecting authorized legal practices at all times. Annual salaries you can earn in this position average around $47,109 per year.

ScoreLegal TechnicianUS Average

Salary

4.9

Avg. Salary $62,283

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.0

Growth rate 14%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.5

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.40%

Asian 5.56%

Black or African American 8.75%

Hispanic or Latino 20.82%

Unknown 4.78%

White 59.68%

Gender

female 63.55%

male 36.45%

Age - 47

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 - 47

Stress level

7.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.5

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.3

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a legal technician

Explore legal technician education requirements

Most common legal technician degrees

Bachelor's

53.4 %

Associate

21.9 %

Master's

8.5 %

Start to develop specific legal technician skills

Skills	Percentages
Litigation	13.00%
SharePoint	9.02%
Legal Research	7.19%
SQL	6.37%
Windows	6.29%

Complete relevant legal technician training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New legal technicians 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 a legal technician based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real legal technician resumes.

Research legal technician duties and responsibilities

Gather and prepare documents for binders/notebooks for depositions, arbitration, hearings/trial; manage incoming document production mostly for litigation purposes.
Collect medical records for attorneys, law enforcement, and court order subpoenas.
Prepare medical records for patients, physicians, subpoenas, copy services, etc.
Maintain and track litigation data, analyze data problems and recommend corrective action to senior legal systems staff.

Prepare your legal technician resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your legal technician 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 a legal technician resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable legal technician resume templates

Build a professional legal technician 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 legal technician resume.