Experience pays in legal field, salary survey says

Pauline Bell

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Experienced legal secretaries, litigation and transactional paralegals and legal administrators are some of the highest paid legal professionals in Southern Nevada, according to a newly released salary survey.

Data for the survey was obtained from 93 legal offices representing 1,254 full-time employees and 596 attorneys. Those included private law firms, corporations and government entities. Seventy-four were Las Vegas-based law firms, four were branch offices of national firms and 15 were in-house counsel.

Support staff for legal offices were surveyed and the study did not include salaries of attorneys.

"Our 1996 Legal Salary Survey suggests a similar rhythm as our 1995 survey results -- that law firms and corporate legal departments are still willing to pay higher salaries to attract and retain all levels of key staff," said Renee Loheed, division manager for Exclusively Legal, a full-time and temporary legal staffing firm.

"Salaries remained high this year for the majority of positions, especially legal secretarial and paralegal categories," she added.

A legal administrator with more than 10 years' experience makes an average minimum salary of $3,955 a month and an average maximum of $4,218, according to the study prepared by the staffing firm of Exclusively Legal, a Las Vegas-based research firm.

The average monthly salary for a legal administrator with a decade of experience is $4,087, with the highest reported salary being $5,833. That is a $5,000, or 9 percent increase over 1995's salary figures.

Legal administrators are responsible for the management of a law office including finance, accounting, human resources and support staff supervision.

A legal secretary with more than 10 years' experience earned an average monthly salary of $2,790 with the highest reported monthly salary being $3,627. These figures show an increase of more than $300 from the 1995 salary survey figures.

A legal secretary is responsible for scheduling, transcribing, billing and maintaining court files.

Litigation paralegals with more than 10 years' experience earn an average of $2,903 a month with $3,350 a month being the highest-reported salary.

Those paralegals draft legal documents, handle trial preparation and record summaries. They may also be responsible for databased used in litigation support.

Transactional paralegals specialize in business transactions, drafting and filing various agreements related to real estate and corporate matters. One of those paralegals with more than 10 years of experience made an average of $3,010 a month. The highest reported salary in the survey was $3,483 a month.

Salaries for the two paralegals showed almost no difference from 1995 to 1996, according to the respective surveys.