There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a senior legal assistant. For example, did you know that they make an average of $25.49 an hour? That's $53,016 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 12% and produce 39,000 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many senior legal 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.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a senior legal assistant, we found that a lot of resumes listed 18.2% of senior legal assistants included legal documents, while 14.6% of resumes included legal advice, and 6.0% of resumes included counsel. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the senior legal assistant job title. But what industry to start with? Most senior legal assistants actually find jobs in the professional and finance industries.
If you're interested in becoming a senior legal assistant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 35.2% of senior legal assistants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 9.2% of senior legal assistants have master's degrees. Even though most senior legal assistants have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a senior legal assistant. When we researched the most common majors for a senior legal assistant, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on senior legal assistant resumes include master's degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a senior legal assistant. In fact, many senior legal assistant jobs require experience in a role such as legal assistant. Meanwhile, many senior legal assistants also have previous career experience in roles such as legal secretary or paralegal.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
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 senior paralegal you might progress to a role such as paralegal/office manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title business office manager.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Senior Legal Assistant. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Senior Legal Assistant Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Senior Legal Assistant resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationPhiladelphia, PA • Private
Evanston, IL • Private
Stanford, CA • Private
Fort Worth, TX • Private
Cambridge, MA • Private
Boston, MA • Private
Los Angeles, CA • Public
Saint Paul, MN • Private
Berkeley, CA • Public
Washington, DC • Private
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, 18.2% of senior legal assistants listed legal documents on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and computer skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a senior legal assistant. The best states for people in this position are Texas, California, Connecticut, and Delaware. Senior legal assistants make the most in Texas with an average salary of $61,225. Whereas in California and Connecticut, they would average $58,117 and $57,963, respectively. While senior legal assistants would only make an average of $56,967 in Delaware, 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
$63,343
Avg. Salary
2. Texas
$61,225
Avg. Salary
3. Rhode Island
$56,811
Avg. Salary