Corporate paralegal job description template: duties, requirements and pay range

A corporate paralegal posting has five working parts: the duties the hire will actually own, the qualifications and credentials you will verify, the skills and software the role runs, the pay and benefits, and how to apply.

Each gets its own block in the template below.

The decisions before the posting — which transaction slice you need covered, where to source candidates, how to screen — are covered in our guide to how to hire a corporate paralegal; this page is about writing it, and the general mechanics are in writing a law firm job posting.

Core duties.

Corporate paralegal work divides into a few recurring blocks, and a posting that names its own mix lets applicants tell whether the desk matches the experience they have.

Duties worth a line on the posting:

• [Entity work] Forming and maintaining [LLCs, corporations, partnerships]: drafting and filing [formation documents, annual reports, amendments, cancellations]; tracking registered-agent renewals
• [Corporate records] Keeping minute books, stock ledgers, organizational documents and subsidiary charts current in [entity management software]
• [Filings] Preparing and filing [UCC financing statements, Secretary of State filings, annual registrations] and logging the confirmations
• [Compliance calendar] Tracking [annual report due dates, franchise tax deadlines, business license renewals, good-standing certificates] across [number] entities in [states]
• [Deals] Supporting [M&A / financing / reorganization] closings: due diligence document requests, closing checklists, signature pages, post-closing filings
• Drafting [board resolutions, written consents, officer certificates, powers of attorney] from firm templates for attorney review
• [Securities support: state notice filings and EDGAR submissions prepared for attorney review — keep only if your practice does this]
• Coordinating with clients on [entity records, signature logistics, filing status] and recording time in the firm's billing system

Two boundaries shape the duties block.

First, write each duty as work performed under an attorney's supervision: drafts prepared for review, filings prepared and tracked, records maintained, logistics coordinated — not legal judgments made.

ABA Model Rule 5.5 bars lawyers from assisting the unauthorized practice of law, and a duties list that reads as client advice invites that question; the supervision rules carry the same logic, with Comment [2] to ABA Model Rule 5.3 counting paraprofessionals among the nonlawyers lawyers must instruct on ethics, especially confidentiality, and expecting supervision to account for the fact that nonlawyers lack legal training and are not subject to professional discipline.

Second, keep client-facing language on the logistics side of the line: prepare, track, maintain and coordinate — leave advising and representing off the paralegal's list entirely.

These are the ABA's model rules; states adopt their own versions, so confirm the wording that fits your jurisdiction with your state bar's ethics counsel.

Qualifications and certifications.

Lead with the experience the work generates rather than a credentials pile: ask for [X]+ years of [corporate / entity management / transactional] paralegal experience.

Then write the education row you actually mean — an associate or bachelor's degree, a paralegal certificate, or education preferred and experience required — because a degree requirement screens out every candidate without one, including experienced ones.

Certifications belong in a preferred block unless your firm genuinely requires one, and each name signals something different.

NALA's Certified Paralegal (CP) is an earned credential rather than a course completion: NALA distinguishes a certificate, which marks a learning program someone finished, from certification, which validates mastery against a professional standard.

NFPA administers two exams — the PCCE, for early-career and entry-level paralegals, which earns the CRP designation, and the PACE, for experienced paralegals, which earns the RP — and both require work experience plus education; NFPA says someone without substantive paralegal work experience is not eligible for either, so an RP or CRP on a resume points to work experience as well as an exam passed.

NALS offers the ALP, the CLP and the PP (Professional Paralegal).

If you do require a certification, say so in the posting and verify it is current — NALA's CP runs five years and renews with 50 hours of CLE, including at least 5 in legal ethics.

For what these paths look like from the candidate's side, our corporate paralegal career guide covers the routes.

Skills and software.

Name the systems your firm actually runs, split into must-have-on-day-one versus willing-to-train, and the posting starts doing your screening for you.

For a corporate desk the stack is: [your entity management or subsidiary governance system], [document management system], the online filing portals of the [Secretary of State offices] you file with, [your UCC filing route], [legal research service], time-and-billing, and [the data-room or deal-management platform your closings run on].

The habits matter as much as the tools: precision across many entities and their separate deadline sets, calendar discipline on a compliance calendar of statutory deadlines, written communication that keeps attorneys and clients synchronized, and confidentiality habits that hold up during a busy closing week.

A posting that names its real stack and its real expectations filters better than one that lists nothing at all.

Pay range and benefits.

Anchor the range in your market and your budget before you write it into the posting.

The federal benchmark comes with a scope caveat: BLS treats paralegals and legal assistants as one occupation (SOC 23-2011), so OEWS has no corporate-paralegal series of its own and cannot show whether paralegals out-earn legal assistants.

In the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2025 release, paralegals and legal assistants (SOC 23-2011) had a national median annual wage of $62,890 ($30.24 per hour), with the 10th percentile at $44,740 and the 90th percentile at $101,500 — the spread of the combined occupation, not a floor and a cap for your hire.

The same release splits by industry in a way that matters for this role: paralegals and legal assistants in Legal Services (law firms) had a median annual wage of $61,770, while the same occupation in Management of Companies and Enterprises (corporate offices) had a median annual wage of $94,570.

If the candidates you want are also hearing from in-house departments, that spread is the competition.

State figures are on our corporate paralegal salary page.

Where our research verified a posting rule, the law puts the range in the posting itself:

• California — employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in the job posting and give it to any third party that posts for them; a pay scale is a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly range the employer reasonably expects to pay on hire, with penalties running $100 to $10,000 per violation — and any California employer, whatever its size, must give an applicant the position's pay scale on reasonable request
• Washington — employers with 15 or more employees must disclose the wage scale or salary range and a general description of benefits and other compensation in each posting (in effect since January 1, 2023)
• Illinois — 15 or more employees; pay scale and benefits in the posting, a hyperlink allowed
• Minnesota — 30 or more employees in the state; the starting salary range and a general description of benefits, and ranges may not be open-ended
• Massachusetts — the pay range in job postings; employers with 25 or more employees in the Commonwealth, effective October 29, 2025
• Maryland — the wage range and a general description of benefits in each public and internal job posting, set in good faith
• New York State — four or more employees; compensation ranges in postings for jobs, promotions and transfers
• New York City — a good-faith pay range in job advertisements for NYC-performed work, since November 1, 2022
• Colorado — compensation and benefits disclosed in all internal and public job postings
• Connecticut — the wage or wage range and a general description of benefits in every internal and public job advertisement, effective October 1, 2026
• Virginia — the wage, salary or range disclosed in each public and internal posting

Nevada runs the other way: its law requires giving the wage or salary range to an applicant who has completed an interview, not posting it upfront.

The list above is not the whole map — more than a dozen states plus DC have some form of pay-transparency posting rule, with different size thresholds and effective dates — so check with your state labor agency before you post.

The benefits and hours blocks close the posting.

List what you actually offer — health coverage, retirement plan, paid time off, certification exam and renewal fees, CLE support — and state your hours expectation as the firm's own number rather than leaving it to guesswork.

Classification shapes that hours block: under federal regulations, DOL says paralegals and legal assistants generally do not qualify as exempt learned professionals, because an advanced specialized academic degree is not a standard prerequisite for entry into the field — an exception can apply to a paralegal who holds an advanced specialized degree in another professional field and uses it on the job, with DOL's own example being an engineer hired as a paralegal — and job titles do not determine exemption status: duties and salary must meet the regulations.

How the tests apply to your posting is a question for employment counsel; the rest of the hiring process is in our guide to how to hire a corporate paralegal.

Adapting the template for a small firm.

In a small firm the hire may be the entire corporate function, so write the breadth in honestly: the entity volume they will carry, the filings only they will track, the closings they will support, and — the line that matters most — who reviews their drafts and signs off on their filings.

A named supervisor matters: it tells the candidate who reviews their work and who they escalate to, and it is where the supervision duties attached to the lawyers overseeing the work actually sit.

Post the pay range you actually budgeted rather than a number copied from a big-firm survey — a range you budgeted is a range you can honor in an offer.

And if the role also carries [real estate filings / litigation record support / firm administration], say so in the duties block; a hire brought on for one job and handed three is a retention risk.

Adapting for a practice slice.

Rewrite the duties bullets around the work your docket produces.

An entity-maintenance desk lives in volume: formation filings, annual reports, franchise-tax calendars and subsidiary records across many client entities — lead the requirements with entity-management software fluency and calendar discipline.

A deal desk lives in closings: due diligence requests, checklists, signature logistics and post-closing filings under hard deadlines — lead with transaction support experience and ask about closings the candidate has run.

A securities or finance support role papers offerings and lender work: notice filings, closing sets and EDGAR preparation for attorney review.

Let the requirements block follow the same logic — ask for the experience your matters generate, not corporate experience in the abstract — and if the slice changes after you post, update the posting rather than explaining the difference in interviews.

Five wordings sink otherwise good corporate paralegal postings.

Each is fixable before you hit publish.

1. Duties that drift across the unauthorized-practice line.

ABA Model Rule 5.5 bars lawyers from assisting the unauthorized practice of law, and the assist runs through the firm: a duties list that has the paralegal advising clients on legal questions, choosing business entities without attorney review, or appearing before an agency on a client's behalf invites the question of who is practicing law.

Write the block as supervision-shaped work — drafts prepared for attorney review, filings prepared and tracked, records maintained, logistics coordinated — and instruct the hire on ethics from day one — the responsibility Comment [2] to ABA Model Rule 5.3 places on lawyers to instruct nonlawyer assistants such as paraprofessionals on ethics, especially confidentiality.

These are model rules; your state adopts its own version, so confirm the wording with your state bar's ethics counsel before you post.

2. Preference wording that screens by who people are.

The EEOC says it is illegal to publish a job advertisement that shows a preference for, or discourages applications from, people because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information — its own example is an ad seeking "recent college graduates," which may discourage people over 40 from applying.

Write about the work, not the person: cut young, digital native and recent grad from a paralegal posting the same as any other.

Keep application questions to what is essential to decide whether a person is qualified — the EEOC treats questions about race, sex, national origin, age or religion as irrelevant to that decision — and treat the borderline ones as risky rather than harmless, because federal law does not clearly forbid every such question, but the answers can be used as evidence of intent to discriminate unless justified by a business purpose.

Keep the process accessible too: an employer must provide an accommodation a disabled applicant needs in order to apply, unless it causes significant difficulty or expense.

3. Salary-history questions.

Several of the state laws our research read bar the question.

California (Labor Code 432.3) and Massachusetts (G.L. c.149 §105A) bar seeking an applicant's salary history.

New York (Labor Law 194-a) bars relying on wage or salary history and requesting it as a condition of being interviewed, considered, hired or promoted, including seeking it from a current or former employer; Illinois (820 ILCS 112) bars screening applicants by salary history, requesting it as a condition of an interview or offer, and seeking it from a current or former employer.

Virginia's posting law bans seeking salary history, and Connecticut bars asking about it unless the applicant volunteers it.

Ask for expectations instead — California's law expressly allows an employer to ask an applicant about their salary expectation for the position.

Other states restrict salary-history questions as well — check yours before the interview stage.

4. Conviction-history questions too early.

California's Fair Chance Act (employers with five or more employees) and New York City's Fair Chance Act (most employers) bar asking about or considering conviction history until after a conditional offer of employment; Illinois's version holds the bar until an applicant has been found qualified and notified of selection for an interview — or, where there is no interview, until after a conditional offer.

If your application form asks about criminal record, check your state and city law before you post — California, New York City and Illinois are the fair-chance rules our research verified.

5. Vague scope.

Corporate paralegal wanted — join our growing firm, with no slice, no software and no range: an umbrella posting invites applications from entity-maintenance specialists, deal-desk closers and securities filers alike and saves you none of the sorting, and it reads as a firm that has not decided what the desk actually owns.

The fix is the template above — name the transaction slice, the entities and filings the role carries, the systems it runs on, and a range you believe.

After you post.

Set a review cadence before the posting goes live and hold to it — a slow reply reads as a closed door.

If you asked for a certification, verify it is current with the certifying body rather than taking the resume line at face value.

If the pay range or the duties change, update the posting rather than explaining the difference in interviews.

Prepare the interview the same way for every candidate — the same questions, the same structure, a scoring sheet — so comparisons stay fair and every question stays tied to the job.

And before yours goes up, browse the live corporate paralegal jobs on this board to see the pay framing and duty lists you are competing against.

This page is employer information, not legal advice. Pay-transparency posting laws, salary-history bans, fair-chance laws, overtime classification and ethics rules change and vary by jurisdiction — confirm them with your state labor agency, employment counsel and your state bar's ethics counsel before you post.