LO
Paralegal — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants · Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers · Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners · Court, Municipal, and License Clerks · Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants · Correspondence Clerks · Office Clerks, General · Medical Records Specialists
In the official classification#
Paralegals and Legal Assistants
Fit with this page: same job
Job Zone 3: medium preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 23-2011.00 (Paralegals and Legal Assistants). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Social PerceptivenessImportant
- Service OrientationImportant
- Complex Problem SolvingImportant
- Judgment and Decision MakingImportant
- Time ManagementImportant
- CoordinationImportant
- PersuasionImportant
- NegotiationImportant
Knowledge
- Law and GovernmentExtremely important
- English LanguageVery important
- AdministrativeVery important
- Computers and ElectronicsVery important
- Customer and Personal ServiceVery important
- Administration and ManagementImportant
Work activities
- Documenting/Recording InformationVery important
- Working with ComputersVery important
- Communicating with People Outside the OrganizationVery important
- Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or SubordinatesVery important
- Getting InformationVery important
- Updating and Using Relevant KnowledgeVery important
Abilities
- Written ComprehensionVery important
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Oral ExpressionVery important
- Written ExpressionVery important
- Near VisionVery important
- Speech RecognitionVery important
Essential skills
- WritingVery important
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
- Active ListeningVery important
- SpeakingVery important
- Critical ThinkingImportant
Tasks O*NET proposes to add#
O*NET's analysts propose new or reworded task statements for future data collection, drawing on what surveyed workers write in, research into new technologies and professional associations. They are candidates, not yet part of the rated task list, and they say nothing about whether automation is involved. This site does not fold them into its own task judgements.
- Manage attorneys' calendars and schedule meetings.New task · 2024-08 · reported by surveyed workers · O*NET 31.0
- Request, review, and summarize relevant records for the cases.New task · 2024-08 · reported by surveyed workers · O*NET 31.0
Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 5 task judgements are for: 3 backed by a verified event, 2 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Four kinds of source, and each block says which: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.