Real Estate Legal Secretary
Career Area: Clerical and Administrative
Occupation Group: Administrative Assistants
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 Real Estate Legal Secretary earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $37,163
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $45,610
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Provides secretarial and administrative work for a real estate attorney or real estate law firm. Uses specialized knowledge of legal terminology and procedures related to real estate. Prepares documents for residential or commercial real estate transactions and assists with legal research. Works with supervision from an attorney or paralegal; may handle paralegal tasks.
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 | 5 | -20.2% |
| Nationwide | 560 | -20.9% |
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 Real Estate Legal Secretary is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.
- Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
- 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 Word: Microsoft Word is a word processor developed by Microsoft.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Legal Support: Working experience of Legal Support, which is the ability to file papers appropriately, take dictation, set up meetings and help prepare presentations.
- Real Estate Experience: Working experience with Real Estate, most often refering to buildings or land intended to generate a profit, either from capital gain or rental income.
- Administrative Support: Working experience providing various kinds of administrative support and services to people and groups in business operations. These include mailing, scanning, maintaining an electronic and hard copy filing system, performing data entry, managing calendars, etcetera.
- 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.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Real Estate Legal Secretary that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Legal Document Preparation: Legal instrument is a legal term of art that is used for any formally executed written document that can be formally attributed to its author, records and formally expresses a legally enforceable act, process, or contractual duty, obligation, or right, and therefore evidences that act, process, or agreement.
- Legal Terminology:
- Calendar Management: Experience managing the schedules or calendars associated with one or more projects.
- Preparation of Pleadings: A pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adjudicated in the action.
- Civil Litigation: Working experience in the non-criminal stream of actions in law.
Salary Boosting Skills
A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:
- Commercial Litigation: a situation in which one company takes legal action against another
- Travel Arrangements: Experience managing the day-to-day operations of a corporate travel program, and the strategic approach to travel by the organization.
- Quickbooks: QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit.
- Contract Drafting: Experience drafting, or writing the language used in contracts.
- 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.
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 | 25% |
| 3 to 5 years | 71% |
| 6 to 8 years | 2% |
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 Secretary
- Transactional Legal Secretary
- Real Estate Legal Secretary
- Legal Secretary - Real Estate
- Legal Receptionist
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