How Much Do Paralegals Make?
How much do paralegals make is one of the latest questions sent in by our readers here at Paralegal Expert. Everyone who has considered a career as a legal assistant will have thought about what they could earn. It is tough to answer this question properly as there are so many variables that could affect your future earnings.
Your choice of specialization, your qualifications and experience as well as where you are located will all have an impact on your potential earnings.
But there are things that you can do to increase your earning potential. Generally speaking gaining your paralegal certification will help increase your earnings. Those earning the highest salaries i.e. over $60,000 tend to have a combination of qualifications and relevant experience.
When you are starting out, gaining relevant experience can be difficult. You have to think outside the box on this one. Choose a course that offers an internship. Call your local law firms and offer to work for them on a very low salary in return for gaining experience. Take advantage of any contract work you can get.
Short term work positions may not be the ideal career but they do allow you gain a lot of experience in a relatively short space of time. They also have another benefit as you get to see the inside workings of the firm and so can decide whether you would like a similar position or not!
When you start out as a newly qualified paralegal you will spend a lot of your time on basic legal administrative tasks. This is a chance for you to prove yourself. You have the choice of moaning about how boring the work is or getting on with and doing whatever you are given to the best of your ability. Which approach do you think will lead to you being given more responsibility?
As you prove your abilities you will find yourself being given more advanced and hopefully more interesting tasks. In every career you have to do the grunt work and impress the bosses before moving onto the more exciting complicated works. Some students think they will start writing legal briefings immediately but this would not be the norm.
As you already know the location will have an impact on your salary. Outside of law firms, the Federal government is the biggest employer of paralegals. They pay well too and you also have an increased chance of working a forty hour week rather than the forty hour weekend required by a lot of law firms.
It is hardly surprising then that Washington DC or the District of Colombia is the location that offers one of the highest potential paralegal salaries. In fact in a recent survey it was only beaten by Stockton California. This isn’t really that surprising as this is where a lot of IT and Software development industries are located. They also recruit paralegals and pay them very well.
Having experience and qualifications in another industry can really increase both your earnings potential and your chances of securing a position. A nurse paralegal will usually earn more than a legal assistant with no specialization. But you have to remember that it takes time to train to become a nurse and you would also need relevant working experience. So if you are new to any profession, your time would be better spent getting your qualifications and working on gaining relevant experience.
But if you are a mature entrant to the legal career field, it is useful to know that certain employers will pay more for those with other qualifications. Experience and qualifications in accounting, corporate management, software development, banking etc all have their uses in the right firm.
While it is important to have a general idea of how much do paralegals make, this isn’t the only issue you should consider. It is too simplistic to say that you need to go to California or DC to earn the higher salaries. You will have to pay a large part of your newly found wealth on living costs and may end up poorer than you would be if you took a job in West Virginia.
Similarly Alaska offers legal assistants some fantastic opportunities including the chance of earning a high paralegal salary but not everyone could cope with living in this particular climate. Job satisfaction and quality of life are also important considerations regardless if you are thinking about becoming a paralegal or any other career.