Paralegals and Legal Assistants
Assist lawyers by investigating facts, preparing legal documents, or researching legal precedent. Conduct research to support a legal proceeding, to formulate a defense, or to initiate legal action.
- US jobs
- 392,880
- Median wage
- $62,890 a year
- Job family
- Legal
Can agents do the work of paralegals and legal assistants?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Legal:
- Task levelUnexploredNo task-level benchmark in our collection tests legal work, such as contract review or legal research with tools.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. APEX-Agents includes corporate-law tasks: across banking, consulting, and law, the best agent passes 73.5% on the first try. GDPval includes lawyers among its 44 occupations. Neither benchmark tests work with real clients, courts, or deadlines.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in legal, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Prepare affidavits or other documents, such as legal correspondence, and organize and maintain documents in paper or electronic filing system.
- Prepare, edit, or review legal documents, including legislation, briefs, pleadings, appeals, wills, contracts, and real estate closing statements.
- Investigate facts and law of cases and search pertinent sources, such as public records and internet sources, to determine causes of action and to prepare cases.
- Prepare for trial by performing tasks such as organizing exhibits.
- Meet with clients and other professionals to discuss details of cases.
- Gather and analyze research data, such as statutes, decisions, and legal articles, codes, and documents.
- File pleadings with court clerks.
- Direct and coordinate law office activity, including delivery of subpoenas.
- Call upon witnesses to testify at hearings.
- Arbitrate disputes between parties and assist in the real estate closing process, such as by reviewing title searches.
- Appraise and inventory real and personal property for estate planning.
- Keep and monitor legal volumes to ensure that the law library is up-to-date.
Other job titles for this occupation (26)
Immigration Paralegal · Law Associate · Legal Analyst · Legal Assistant · Legal Clerk · Legal Processing Assistant · Litigation Paralegal · Paralegal · Paralegal Specialist · Real Estate Paralegal · Certified Paralegal · Contract Preparer · Contracts Specialist · Corporate Legal Assistant · Corporate Paralegal · Document Processor · Estate Planning Paralegal · Family Law Paralegal · Intellectual Property Paralegal · Legal Aide · Litigation Legal Assistant · Paralegal Assistant · Personal Injury Paralegal · Principal Law Clerk · Summer Associate · Trademark Paralegal