Legal Support Specialist
Career Area: Law, Compliance, and Public Safety
Occupation Group: Legal Support
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Legal Support Specialist earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $47,413
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $49,452
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Assists with preparing and prosecuting cases, as part of a legal team or under the direction of a litigation attorney. Collects evidence, reviews files and assists with other litigation work. Works for a law firm, or for a company subject to litigation such as an insurance company. May help to work out settlements for cases prior to litigation.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 122 | +2.4% |
| Nationwide | 5944 | +1.6% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Legal Support Specialist is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Detail-Oriented: A detail oriented person is someone who pays attention to the details and can make a conscious effort to understand causes instead of just the effects, and that does this in a second nature type of way.
- Microsoft Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications.
- Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
- Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Litigation: Working experience of Litigation. Litigation is the term used to describe proceedings initiated between two opposing parties to enforce or defend a legal right. Litigation is typically settled by agreement between the parties, but may also be heard and decided by a jury or judge in court.
- Legal Documentation: Working experience of Legal Documentation. Documentation is material that provides official information or evidence or that serves as a record.
- Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
- Legal Research: Legal research is the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making.
- Legal Document Composition: Legal writing is a type of technical writing used by lawyers, judges, legislators, and others in law to express legal analysis and legal rights and duties. Legal writing in practice is used to advocate for or to express the resolution of a client's legal matter.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Legal Support Specialist that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Document Review: Document review (also known as doc review), in the context of legal proceedings, is the process whereby each party to a case sorts through and analyzes the documents and data they possess (and later the documents and data supplied by their opponents through discovery) to determine which are sensitive or otherwise relevant to the case.
- E-Discovery: Working experience of E-Discovery. Electronic discovery (also e-discovery or ediscovery) refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format (often referred to as electronically stored information or ESI).
- Indexing: Working knowledge of Indexing, which is the process that collects, parses, and stores data to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval.
- Trial Preparation: Trial Preparation definition Trial preparation is the gathering and preparing of raw materials for a court case or hearing. It can also give a judge and jury a better understanding of the facts presented in a lawsuit. ... Trial preparation, sometimes referred to as trial prep or hearing preparation, can include: Evidence gathering.
- Corporate Governance: Corporate governance is the mechanisms, processes and relations by which corporations are controlled and directed.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 52% |
| 3 to 5 years | 39% |
| 6 to 8 years | 4% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Legal Administrator
- Legal Specialist
- Legal Intake Specialist
- Legal Analyst
- Legal Administrative Specialist
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