Are paralegals exempt from overtime in New York?

The federal baseline does not change at the state line.

Under the FLSA, 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 (29 CFR 541.301(e)(7)).

Our guide to the federal paralegal overtime rules walks that analysis end to end; this page covers what New York adds on top of it.

What our research verified New York adds is on the salary side.

The state sets its own exempt salary threshold for executive and administrative employees, above the federal standard salary level, and it is not one number: the figure for New York City, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester differs from the figure for the rest of the state.

The New York State Department of Labor publishes the figures, and the Department's own guidance covers the posting law below.

The federal duties analysis still applies in New York.

A salary threshold, federal or state, is half of a test — the duties have to fit the exemption too, and the field-wide paralegal rule still decides the federal learned-professional route.

Our research did not verify New York's own duties tests for these exemptions, so confirm that piece with the New York State Department of Labor.

How to run the two tests in order, duties first and salary second, is the general question our guide to classifying legal staff covers.

From January 1, 2026, New York's exempt salary threshold for executive and administrative employees is $1,275.00 per week in New York City, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, and $1,199.10 per week in the rest of the state.

Both sit above the federal standard salary level, which the U.S. Department of Labor's salary-levels page listed at $684 per week ($35,568 a year) as of October 2, 2026.

Read the threshold's label closely: New York's figure is written for executive and administrative employees.

For a paralegal seat, the learned-professional route is generally closed at the federal level, which leaves the executive and administrative exemptions as the categories New York's own thresholds govern.

One piece our research did not verify: the New York Department of Labor FAQ these figures come from addresses executive and administrative employees, and we did not verify how a professional-employee salary threshold works in New York.

Confirm that piece with the Department before relying on it for any role.

The threshold is also an entry condition, not a status change.

Paying a paralegal more than $1,275.00 or $1,199.10 a week does not make the role exempt when the duties do not fit — the same salary-alone trap the federal rules create.

And both figures carry a start date, so check the Department's current numbers before you run payroll against them.

New York's thresholds are not paralegal-specific.

They cover executive and administrative employees across the firm, so the same regional figure is the one your firm checks for any role it tests against those routes.

Law graduates awaiting the bar sit on a different fault line.

The federal route that exempts your admitted attorneys — an employee holding a valid license to practice law who is actually engaged in practice — has no salary requirement under that regulation, and it does not cover a graduate awaiting bar results or an unlicensed law clerk.

They must meet another exemption's salary and duties tests or be paid overtime, so a New York firm hiring law clerks while they sit for the bar inherits the classification question before the license arrives.

Contract document review is its own corner of the question: a 2015 Second Circuit case addressed whether document reviewers qualify for the FLSA's practice-of-law exemption.

Our research could not verify that case's details from the opinion itself, so treat any document-reviewer classification as a question for employment counsel rather than settled ground.

Computer employees — relevant to some eDiscovery and litigation-support roles — can meet the compensation test a different way: hourly pay at not less than $27.63 an hour satisfies it.

That is a federal figure — our research did not verify how New York treats this route — and the duties still have to fit the exemption.

The cost that follows directly from the rules above is the overtime premium a misclassified paralegal was owed on the overtime hours they worked while the classification stood.

The federal side of that exposure — how it arises and how to think about it — is covered in our guide to the federal paralegal overtime rules.

The state layer we cannot size for you.

The sources we read verified New York's salary thresholds and its posting law; they did not verify the specific amounts, multipliers or deadlines New York's own wage-and-hour enforcement attaches to misclassification, and we will not quote figures our research does not support.

Treat New York exposure as a two-layer question, and put the second layer to employment counsel with New York wage-and-hour experience and to the New York State Department of Labor before your firm relies on any number it finds elsewhere.

Work backward from the classification.

Start a general paralegal seat as non-exempt and build the pay around the hours the seat actually works; test an exemption only when a specific route's duties and salary both fit, and in New York the salary side of the executive and administrative routes is the regional figure above.

No salary level, federal or state, exempts a role on its own.

Then publish the range, because New York requires it.

New York Labor Law 194-b requires businesses with four or more employees to list compensation ranges for advertised jobs, promotions and transfers — on an advertised job, that is the range candidates see, and the requirement reaches internal promotions and transfers too.

In New York City, the NYC Human Rights Law has required a good-faith pay range in advertisements for NYC-performed work since November 1, 2022.

The posting-side mechanics are covered in our guide to writing law firm job postings.

For the market side of the number — what paralegals in New York are actually paid — our New York paralegal salary page carries the Bureau of Labor Statistics' figures for the state (SOC 23-2011), and the hiring picture around the role is our guide to hiring for your law firm.

Employer information, not legal advice. New York's thresholds and posting rules carry dates and change; confirm your classification and pay decisions with employment counsel, and check the New York State Department of Labor's current figures before you rely on anything here.