How to hire a legal technician

How to hire a legal technician, step by step

Here's a step-by-step legal technician hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a legal technician job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new legal technician
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a legal technician do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   First, determine the employments status of the legal technician you need to hire. Certain legal technician roles might require a full-time employee, whereas others can be done by part-time workers or contractors.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A legal technician's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, legal technicians from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list presents legal technician salaries for various positions.

   Type of Legal Technician	Description	Hourly rate
   Legal Technician	Paralegals and legal assistants do a variety of tasks to support lawyers, including maintaining and organizing files, conducting legal research, and drafting documents.	$21-41
   Real Estate Paralegal	A Real Estate Paralegal helps real estate lawyers with a variety of tasks, such as offering advice to clients, doing research, and preparing documents. They collaborate with landlords, housing managers, or other real estate personnel.	$23-45
   Contractor-Paralegal	A Contractor-Paralegal works for a law firm or corporate legal department for a specified amount of time, or for a specified task. They can be specialized in the entertainment industry or in providing services to healthcare companies and insurance providers.	$17-47

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Litigation
   • SharePoint
   • Legal Research
   • SQL
   • Windows
   • Legal Support
   • Technical Support
   • Legal Services
   • Data Entry
   • Word Processing
   • Legal Issues
   • Government Agencies
   • Child Support Cases
   • Law Firm

   Check all skills

   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.
   • Collect and prepare required documentation for answering interrogatories and drafting interrogatories for attorney review to be forward to opposing counsel.
   • Administer government policies and procedures in the resolution of litigation and other matters resulting from the closing of fail financial institutions.

   More legal technician duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your legal technician job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A legal technician salary can vary based on several factors:

   • Location. For example, legal technicians' average salary in indiana is 42% less than in district of columbia.
   • Seniority. Entry-level legal technicians earn 49% less than senior-level legal technicians.
   • Certifications. A legal technician with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a legal technician's salary.

   Average legal technician salary

   $62,283yearly

   $29.94 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level legal technician salary

   $44,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 17, 2025

   Average legal technician salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	District of Columbia	$79,749	$38
   2	California	$78,821	$38
   3	New York	$78,800	$38
   4	Pennsylvania	$77,914	$37
   5	Illinois	$77,624	$37
   6	New Jersey	$76,389	$37
   7	Washington	$74,940	$36
   8	Nevada	$69,517	$33
   9	Georgia	$62,283	$30
   10	Colorado	$61,415	$30
   11	Michigan	$61,267	$29
   12	Texas	$60,286	$29
   13	North Carolina	$51,926	$25
   14	Missouri	$49,622	$24

   Average legal technician salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	AIG	$104,320	$50.15
   2	Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group	$97,509	$46.88
   3	Splunk	$96,157	$46.23
   4	Cravath	$88,564	$42.58	1
   5	Ropes & Gray	$88,499	$42.55	9
   6	Alere	$87,078	$41.86
   7	Bayer	$84,254	$40.51	30
   8	Edward Jones	$79,858	$38.39
   9	Bernstein Chackman & Liss	$72,515	$34.86
   10	Abbott	$68,230	$32.80	1
   11	Credit Acceptance	$66,192	$31.82
   12	Johnson & Johnson	$65,529	$31.50
   13	Russell Tobin	$64,020	$30.78
   14	Tom Sawyer Software	$61,973	$29.79
   15	AP WIRELESS	$61,844	$29.73
   16	HBR Consulting	$61,536	$29.58
   17	New America	$61,376	$29.51
   18	Robert Half	$59,600	$28.65	132
   19	Weld County Government	$54,878	$26.38
   20	Hollywood Park Casino	$54,162	$26.04

4. Writing a legal technician job description

   A legal technician job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a legal technician job description:

   Legal technician job description example

   Working at Atlassian
   
   Atlassian can hire people in any country where we have a legal entity. Assuming you have eligible working rights and a sufficient time zone overlap with your team, you can choose to work remotely or return to an office as they reopen (unless it's necessary for your role to be performed in the office). Interviews and onboarding are conducted virtually, a part of being a distributed-first company.
   
   As we prepare for the next phase of Atlassian's growth journey, we are looking for a passionate Head of IT, People & Legal Technology who will empower Atlassian's, and help unleash the power of our team. You will be part of IT Applications leadership team and will build delightful and compliant experiences for our workforce and our customers and lead a global and diverse team across our PeopleTech, LegalTech, and ComplianceTech portfolios.
   
   Are you passionate about building/growing an IT organization with a product engineering centric mindset?
   Do you love connecting Strategy to Transformation while striving for Operational Excellence?
   Are you passionate about working with a multi-functional, geographically distributed team of diverse individuals?
   
   If yes, we believe you'll be engaged and challenged in this role and have the opportunity to demonstrate your skills to positively improve Atlassian in the Team Anywhere world. You'll lead Product Management, Engineering, Delivery and Operations for PeopleTech and LegalTech portfolios and you will report to the Head of IT Applications.
   In this role, you'll get to: Lead an organization of Engineers, Product Managers, and Analysts supporting the internal systems and tools that drive Atlassian's People, Legal and RAC(Risk & Compliance) Departments.Assess the impact of emerging technologies against strategic needs and ensure appropriate technology roadmaps and investments.Inspire your teams to build great products that deliver integrated experiences for our end-users.Develop solutions using an integrated tech-stack that scale with the growing needs of Atlassian's employee and customer base.Manage data quality across technology landscape for our integrations and analytics.Lead by example in piloting modern IT practices and applying Atlassian tools to supercharge operations, serving as a role model for our customers.Grow and motivate your global organization.Ensure that the team is a modern IT team with best practices that are the best in the industry. Help transform your team into operating with a product operating model.
   On your first day, we'll expect you to have: Passion and experience building, deploying and optimizing IT products and employee experiences Demonstrated history of collaborating across teams Love of people development, with experience leading and growing future leaders Demonstrate direct knowledge of People, Legal, and Compliance TechnologyExperience with building or deploying Cloud SaaS solutions More than 15 years of experience with medium or large-scale enterprise software companies.Experience Leading a globally distributed team and matrix organization.Have a track record building growth-mindset teams, within a global software, B2B, or cloud services company Experience participating and co-creating a Business Strategy with Corporate functions like People, Legal, and ComplianceUnderstanding of integrations, machine learning, artificial intelligence, natural language processing technologiesA degree in computer science or related field OR equivalent meaningful work experience
   Our perks & benefits
   
   To support you at work and play, our perks and benefits include ample time off, an annual education budget, paid volunteer days, and so much more.
   
   About Atlassian
   
   The world's best teams work better together with Atlassian. From medicine and space travel, to disaster response and pizza deliveries, Atlassian software products help teams all over the planet. At Atlassian, we're motivated by a common goal: to unleash the potential of every team.
   
   We believe that the unique contributions of all Atlassians create our success. To ensure that our products and culture continue to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
   
   Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
   
   To learn more about our culture and hiring process, explore our Candidate Resource Hub.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   To find legal technicians for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any legal technicians they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level legal technicians with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your legal technician job on Zippia to find and recruit legal technician candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Your first interview with legal technician candidates should focus on their interest in the role and background experience. As the hiring process goes on, you can learn more about how they'd fit into the company culture in later rounds of interviews.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match your ideal candidate profile. If you think a candidate is good enough for the next step, you can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new legal technician

   Once you have selected a candidate for the legal technician position, it is time to create an offer letter. In addition to salary, the offer letter should include details about benefits and perks that are available to the employee. Ensuring your offer is competitive is vital, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and it is important to be open to discussion and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. After the offer has been accepted, it is a good idea to formalize the agreement with a contract.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   After that, you can create an onboarding schedule for a new legal technician. Human Resources and the hiring manager should complete Employee Action Forms. Human Resources should also ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc., and that new employee files are created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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