How much should a law firm pay a legal secretary?

The benchmark series is BLS's OEWS release for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants (SOC 43-6012) — the series that names the title directly, not a proxy occupation.

Nationally in May 2025, the median annual wage was $55,570 ($26.72 an hour), with the 10th percentile at $36,500, the 90th at $91,730, and employment of 156,280.

The middle half of the series earns between $44,450 (25th percentile) and $71,970 (75th percentile).

Three properties of the data shape how you use it.

It is national, so your area's number can sit well away from the median — the state-by-state figures from the same release sit on our legal secretary salary data page.

It counts employees, not the self-employed: OEWS excludes self-employed workers, so it does not price freelance or contract arrangements.

And it is one series for the whole combined title, so it cannot price your exact duty list within it.

Set the range before you post, because where a posting law applies the range is required in the posting itself: California requires the pay scale in job postings once an employer has 15 or more employees, and New York requires compensation ranges for advertised jobs at four or more.

California defines the pay scale as a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly range you reasonably expect to pay on hire — so the number you post and the number you offer need to agree.

Where no posting law applies, the sharper benchmark is what firms like yours are publishing anyway: our guide to benchmarking law firm pay turns those postings into a number you can defend.

The data cited here holds no experience, practice-area or firm-size split for this title: the OEWS release prices the occupation as a single national series, and the percentile spread is as close as it comes to an experience curve.

The width is real — the distance from $36,500 to $91,730 covers every experience level and every metro in the country — but the data cannot tell you how much of that distance is experience versus geography, and our research holds no verified figure that isolates the two.

The litigation-secretary premium.

On whether a litigation seat pays more: no federal series splits legal secretaries by practice area, and our research holds no verified premium percentage — so do not import one into your budget.

Where a litigation desk lands inside your range is a decision to make from your own posting benchmark and the duty list, not from a percentage this research cannot source.

Firm size and market.

Our research holds no firm-size split for the title either, so the defensible method stays the same: pull the postings for comparable seats in your market — a litigation secretary at a plaintiff's firm, a legal secretary at a defense firm — and read where their ranges start and top out.

In the states with posting laws, that sample carries statutory weight, because covered employers there had to publish the range in the posting.

Titles do not decide classification — the Department of Labor is explicit that job titles do not determine exemption status, and that the duties and the salary must meet the regulations.

An exemption is therefore something the seat has to establish under the duties and salary tests, not something the title confers.

For the federal white-collar exemptions, the standard salary level was $684 per week ($35,568 a year) on DOL's salary-levels page as of October 2026, and a salary at that level still needs the exemption's duties test behind it.

If the seat stays non-exempt — hourly, overtime-eligible — plan the overtime into the budget rather than discovering it in payroll.

California shows why the detail matters: non-exempt employees there earn overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over eight in a workday and over 40 in a workweek, so a long filing day costs more than the hourly rate times the hours on the schedule.

The classification walkthrough for law-firm staff is in our guide to exempt vs. non-exempt law firm staff, and the overtime rules guide covers the staff overtime analysis in depth — written around paralegals, where the DOL guidance is explicit.

Two practical notes.

First, BLS reports the series in hourly terms — $26.72 at the median — which is a convenient cross-check when you set an hourly rate.

Second, keep the paperwork saying the same thing: a range posted as an hourly band, an offer letter describing a salary, and a payroll system set up a third way read as three different jobs.

Whatever structure you pick, write it identically into the posting, the offer and the payroll setup — and get the final classification call for your seat from employment counsel.

We will not invent a ranking: our research holds no survey of what legal-secretary candidates weight most in a package.

What is verifiable is that a set of states — Washington, Illinois, Minnesota and Connecticut among them — have turned the benefits description into a posting requirement, which makes the package part of the pay decision whether or not you treat it as one.

Where the duty applies: Washington requires employers with 15 or more employees to disclose the wage scale or salary range and a general description of benefits in each posting, in effect since January 1, 2023; Illinois requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale and benefits in any specific job posting; Minnesota requires employers with 30 or more employees in Minnesota to list the starting salary range and a general description of benefits, and ranges there may not be open-ended; Connecticut's requirement — the wage or wage range plus a general description of benefits in every internal or public job advertisement — took effect October 1, 2026.

So decide the package deliberately and state what is true for this seat: health coverage and who it extends to; retirement plan and any match; paid time off and the schedule expectations around court runs and filing deadlines; remote and hybrid policy; a training budget and whether the firm funds a credential such as the NALS certifications.

A posting that says what the firm actually offers survives a strong candidate's scrutiny; a vague "competitive benefits" line invites the candidate to assume the worst.

Describe what applies to the role you are posting, and confirm your state's posting requirements with your state labor agency.

Set the number from the benchmarks, then run the conversation by the rules that govern it.

In the four states below, the candidate's salary history is off the table:

• California. Labor Code 432.3 bars every employer — any size — from seeking an applicant's salary history, including compensation and benefits, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, and from relying on it in deciding whether to hire or what to pay. The same statute lets you ask about salary expectations for the position and lets you consider history the applicant volunteers without prompting. It also obliges you to provide the position's pay scale to an applicant on reasonable request — a duty that applies at any employer size, unlike the posting duty, which starts at 15 employees.
• New York. Labor Law 194-a bars relying on an applicant's wage or salary history, requesting it as a condition of being interviewed, considered, hired or promoted, and seeking it from a current or former employer. The window the law opens: when an offer with compensation is made and the applicant responds by citing prior pay to support a higher number, you may then confirm that history.
• Illinois. 820 ILCS 112 makes it unlawful to screen applicants by salary history, to request it as a condition of an interview or offer, or to seek it from a current or former employer.
• Massachusetts. G.L. c.149 §105A bars seeking a prospective employee's wage or salary history from the candidate or from a current or former employer; it may be confirmed only after the candidate volunteers it or after an offer with compensation has been made.

Connecticut bars asking about a prospective employee's wage and salary history unless the applicant volunteers it; Virginia's 2026 law bans seeking salary history alongside its posting requirements; and Nevada's bans seeking it while requiring the wage or salary range to be given to an applicant who has completed an interview.

This is not the full map, and it is not a count: many cities and states have their own salary-history and posting rules, and our research read only the jurisdictions named here.

Script the pay conversation for the jurisdictions you hire in, and confirm it with employment counsel before the first screen.

The play inside those rules: anchor the conversation on your number and the duty list, not on the candidate's past pay — ask what the candidate expects the seat to pay (California's statute expressly permits the expectations question) and let them react to your range rather than defend their history.

State the range plainly; where posting laws require it, it is public anyway — New York City has required a good-faith pay range in job advertisements for NYC-performed work since November 1, 2022, and Colorado requires compensation disclosure in job postings.

Have the pay scale ready before interviews start, because a California applicant can request it.

The full hiring process — duty lists, screening, supervision — is in our guide to how to hire a legal secretary.

Our research holds no published review cadence for staff pay, so anchor the review to the events that move the number:

• Each recruiting cycle. Re-run the benchmark before you post the next seat, not after — the benchmarking law firm pay guide is the method.
• Each BLS release. The OEWS May 2025 estimates are the latest release; when the next reference period publishes, re-check the series on our legal secretary salary data page and re-set the range if the market moved.
• Law changes. Connecticut's posting requirement took effect October 1, 2026, and Virginia's disclosure and salary-history rules arrived through 2026 legislation — new requirements change what the posting must carry, and sometimes what the seat must cost. Stale ranges carry statutory risk where the laws apply: California's penalties for pay-scale violations run $100 to $10,000 per violation, and Virginia's run up to $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for subsequent ones.
• The retention math. A raise that keeps a trained secretary is priced against re-running this whole process — posting, screening, and a ramp measured in months, since BLS says legal secretaries may need several months to learn industry-specific terminology. Calendar the pay review before the resignation, not after.

This page is employer information, not legal advice. The wage figures come from BLS's OEWS May 2025 release, and the salary-history, posting-disclosure and overtime rules come from the statutes and regulations named; they change, and states adopt their own versions. Confirm your pay structure, pay conversations and posting requirements with employment counsel and, for posting rules, your state labor agency.