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The differences between senior legal secretaries and executive secretaries can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 2-4 years to become both a senior legal secretary and an executive secretary. Additionally, a senior legal secretary has an average salary of $60,027, which is higher than the $46,594 average annual salary of an executive secretary.
The top three skills for a senior legal secretary include litigation, travel arrangements and discovery responses. The most important skills for an executive secretary are office procedures, payroll, and word processing.
| Senior Legal Secretary | Executive Secretary | |
| Yearly salary | $60,027 | $46,594 |
| Hourly rate | $28.86 | $22.40 |
| Growth rate | -8% | -8% |
| Number of jobs | 11,223 | 103,802 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 38% | Bachelor's Degree, 44% |
| Average age | 54 | 49 |
| Years of experience | 4 | 4 |
As a senior legal secretary, you have to look after the complex documents of the company and help in the legal filing of these documents within the deadlines. You also need to have great excel skills as there is often a need to create spreadsheets. Typing in legal documents is one of the most necessary skills of a senior legal secretary.
You also need to create great PowerPoint presentations to educate the people in your department. Moreover, you also need to search for warrants and case reports, analyze the data, and communicate with the respective attorneys regarding the contact information.
The primary role of executive secretaries is to provide clerical support to an executive or a high-level administrator. They are the ones who conduct the different administrative support tasks for executives which include managing the calendar of executives, answering phone calls, conducting research and sorting important files, preparing and proofreading monthly reports and industry documents that are relevant to the role of executives, and performing some bookkeeping activities such as invoice creation and office inventory tracking.
Senior legal secretaries and executive secretaries have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Legal Secretary | Executive Secretary | |
| Average salary | $60,027 | $46,594 |
| Salary range | Between $37,000 And $95,000 | Between $31,000 And $69,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | New York, NY |
| Highest paying state | Connecticut | New York |
| Best paying company | Ernst & Young | InfosysPublicService |
| Best paying industry | Insurance | Government |
There are a few differences between a senior legal secretary and an executive secretary in terms of educational background:
| Senior Legal Secretary | Executive Secretary | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 38% | Bachelor's Degree, 44% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Bentley University | Western Carolina University |
Here are the differences between senior legal secretaries' and executive secretaries' demographics:
| Senior Legal Secretary | Executive Secretary | |
| Average age | 54 | 49 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 7.8% Female, 92.2% | Male, 7.7% Female, 92.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 7.5% Unknown, 4.0% Hispanic or Latino, 13.2% Asian, 2.7% White, 71.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.9% | Black or African American, 7.6% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 11.2% Asian, 5.0% White, 71.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% |
| LGBT Percentage | 15% | 10% |