Litigation support specialist job description template: duties, requirements and pay range

A litigation support specialist posting has five working parts: the duties the hire will actually own, the qualifications 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 — whether you need a document-and-trial generalist or a dedicated review-platform desk, where to source candidates, how to screen — are covered in our guide to how to hire a litigation support specialist; this page is about writing it, and the general mechanics are in writing a law firm job posting.

Core duties.

Litigation support 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:

• [Collections and processing] Collecting, processing and loading case documents and data into [review platform], with processing logs and chain-of-custody records kept current
• [Review support] Building and maintaining [review / production] databases: user setup, batch assignment, progress tracking and reporting for the case teams
• [Productions] Preparing and tracking document productions; coordinating with [e-discovery vendors, clients, opposing counsel] on collections, productions and deadline logistics
• [Trial preparation] Preparing documents, exhibits and deposition binders for hearings, mediations, depositions and trial; building exhibit and demonstrative files for attorney review
• [Courtroom] Operating [trial presentation software] in the courtroom and war room during hearings and trial
• [Training] Training and supporting attorneys and paralegals on [review platform, document management system, trial tools]
• [Budgets] Tracking [e-discovery / vendor] invoices and matter budgets in the firm's billing system
• Following the firm's confidentiality and information-governance procedures, and routing substantive legal questions to the supervising attorney

Two boundaries shape the duties block.

First, write each duty as work performed under attorney supervision: databases built, documents processed and produced, exhibits prepared, vendors coordinated, training delivered — not legal judgments made.

The ABA's Model Rule 5.5 bars lawyers from assisting the unauthorized practice of law, and the ABA's Formal Opinion 506 — written on nonlawyer intake — reads the rule to mean that whether an intake nonlawyer may answer a prospective client's specific question depends on the question presented; for a litigation support desk the practical version is to keep advice, strategy and sign-off on the attorney side of the list.

Second, these staff live inside confidential client material all day, and Comment [2] to ABA Model Rule 5.3 names paraprofessionals among the nonlawyers lawyers must instruct on ethics, especially confidentiality, whether employees or independent contractors — so say in the posting that the hire will be trained on the firm's confidentiality and information-governance procedures.

These are the ABA's model rules, and the version in force in your state may read differently — confirm the wording that fits your jurisdiction with your state bar's ethics counsel.

Qualifications and certifications.

Lead with the experience the work generates: ask for [X]+ years in litigation support, e-discovery, records or document management at a law firm, legal department or e-discovery vendor, and name the matter types whose document volumes your teams actually handle — [commercial litigation, insurance defense, mass tort, IP litigation].

Then write the education row you actually mean: a degree, a paralegal or legal-technology certificate, or education preferred with experience required — a hard degree line screens out experienced candidates without one.

Certifications belong in a preferred block unless your firm genuinely requires one.

The credentials our research verified in this niche are ACEDS's Certified E-Discovery Specialist (CEDS) — a 145-question, four-hour multiple-choice exam offered year-round at test centers or online-proctored, with recertification every two years on at least 40 continuing-education credits — and Relativity certifications, which come in tiers: Pro certifications are the entry point and do not expire, with Specialist and Advanced certifications such as the Relativity Certified Administrator above them.

If you do require a certification, say so in its own line and verify it is current with the certifying body rather than taking the resume line at face value.

For how people build these careers from the candidate's side, our litigation support specialist career guide covers the routes.

Skills and software.

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

For a litigation support desk the stack is: [your review platform], [processing or load tools], [document management system], [trial presentation software], [the production and exhibit workflow your teams use], and [matter management or billing] for the budget tracking the role carries.

The habits matter as much as the tools: precision under discovery deadlines, calm in a courthouse on a trial morning, documentation that holds up when a production is questioned, written communication that keeps attorneys, paralegals and vendors synchronized, and confidentiality habits that hold up around sensitive client material.

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, and start from a scope caveat: BLS has no separate occupation code for litigation support specialists, so the two national benchmarks below are proxy occupations — different series, and not numbers to average into one.

In the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2025 release, Legal Support Workers, All Other (SOC 23-2099) had a national median annual wage of $72,110 ($34.67 per hour), with the 10th percentile at $43,800 and the 90th percentile at $179,960; in Legal Services (law firms) the same occupation had a median annual wage of $63,100.

The technical-side proxy, Computer Occupations, All Other (SOC 15-1299), had a national median annual wage of $116,580 ($56.05 per hour), with the 10th percentile at $55,940 and the 90th percentile at $188,470 — and a median of $105,500 in Legal Services.

Employers may report the same work under other codes, including paralegals and legal assistants (SOC 23-2011), and our research cannot tell you which code employers reporting similar staff actually use; treat the two series as context for two different flavors of the desk, not a market rate for the title.

Set the range from the mix your desk actually is — document-and-trial support versus review-platform and data work — your market, and your budget.

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 (or fixed wage) 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 any specific job posting, a hyperlink allowed, covering jobs performed at least partly in Illinois or reporting to an Illinois supervisor
• 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 — employers with 25 or more Massachusetts employees: the pay range in job postings, 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 advertised 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 and training support — and state your hours expectation, including any trial-season reality, as the firm's own number rather than leaving it to guesswork; where a posting law requires a general description of benefits, that line does double duty.

Classification is its own question: the DOL says job titles do not determine exemption status — duties and salary must meet the regulations — so how you classify the role is a question for employment counsel, not a line in the template.

Adapting the template for a small firm.

In a small firm the hire may be the entire litigation support function, so write the breadth in honestly: the case teams they will serve, the systems only they will run, the trial weeks they will staff, and — the line that matters most — who reviews their work and who they escalate to.

A named supervisor matters: it tells the candidate who reviews their productions and who signs off on their work, and it puts a named lawyer behind the ABA Model Rule 5.3 duty to instruct their assistants on ethics, especially confidentiality.

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

And if the role also carries [docketing, records, IT helpdesk, filing] duties, say so in the duties block, so the breadth of the desk is agreed before day one.

Adapting for a practice slice or a heavier technical desk.

Rewrite the duties bullets around the work your docket produces.

A trial-heavy plaintiff or insurance-defense desk lives in exhibits: deposition binders, demonstratives, courtroom technology and war-room logistics — lead the requirements with trial presentation experience and the venues your teams try cases in.

A complex commercial or mass tort desk lives in volume: large productions, review-platform management, vendor coordination and production tracking under discovery deadlines — lead with review-platform fluency and matter-scale experience.

If the desk is really processing, database engineering and analytics, consider whether the posting is an e-discovery specialist role instead, and title it accordingly.

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

Six wordings sink otherwise good litigation support 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 a duties list that has the specialist advising clients on legal questions, shaping strategy, or signing anything that goes to a court invites the question of who is practicing law — and who is assisting them.

Write the block as supervision-shaped work — databases built, documents processed and produced, exhibits prepared for attorney review, vendors coordinated — and keep "route substantive legal questions to the supervising attorney" as its own line.

These are model rules, and your state's version may read differently — 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 litigation support 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 bars all employers, whatever their 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.

New York 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 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.

Massachusetts bars seeking a prospective employee's wage or salary history from the candidate or a current or former employer.

Virginia's posting law bans seeking salary history, Nevada requires giving the range after an interview and 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. A range that isn't there.

In a state whose law requires the pay scale in the posting, "competitive salary" or "DOE" does not meet the requirement — and everywhere else it reads as a firm hiding its budget.

The same applies to a range you will not honor: a good-faith range you budgeted protects you in the offer conversation; a range copied from a survey you never checked does not.

California's on-request rule closes the loop for small firms — even where the posting duty does not reach you, an applicant who asks is owed the pay scale.

6. Vague scope.

Litigation support specialist wanted — join our growing firm, with no software, no slice and no range: an umbrella posting invites applications from trial-technology specialists, review-platform administrators and records clerks 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 slice, the systems, the volume 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.

And before yours goes up, browse the live litigation support specialist 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.