FlightWay / Careers / Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants

Law

Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants

Perform secretarial duties using legal terminology, procedures, and documents.

Sector: Law
Preparation: Zone 3 — medium preparation needed
O*NET code: 43-6012.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Performing Administrative Activities

central to the job — rated 87/100 for importance.
Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

central to the job — rated 85/100 for importance.
Working with Computers

a major part of the work — rated 83/100 for importance.
Processing Information

a major part of the work — rated 82/100 for importance.
Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work

a major part of the work — rated 80/100 for importance.
Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships

a major part of the work — rated 77/100 for importance.

Perform secretarial duties using legal terminology, procedures, and documents. Prepare legal papers and correspondence, such as summonses, complaints, motions, and subpoenas. May also assist with legal research.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Active Listening

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Reading Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Writing

Needed at a solid working level (55/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
Speaking

Needed at a solid working level (46/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.
Time Management

Needed at a basic working level (43/100), and rated 56/100 for importance.

Knowledge

Administrative

Needed at expert level (91/100), and rated 86/100 for importance.
English Language

Needed at a high level (66/100), and rated 84/100 for importance.
Law and Government

Needed at a high level (60/100), and rated 80/100 for importance.
Customer and Personal Service

Needed at a high level (66/100), and rated 73/100 for importance.

Abilities

Near Vision

Needed at a high level (66/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Oral Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Written Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Oral Expression

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 3 — medium preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

Vocational training, an associate degree, or equivalent on-the-job experience.

Experience

One to two years of related experience is typical.

Training

Employers expect you to arrive with the core skill already.

What it pays

These are typical law compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

BigLaw (Cravath Scale)

$215k – $500k+

Regional Law Firms

$90k – $160k

Solo & Small Practices

$55k – $100k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

Most of the day happens at a screen.From “Working with Computers”
Long-running relationships carry the work; the same people come back.From “Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

More in Law

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.