Paralegal Pay By Employer Type
Where Do Paralegals Work? Employers And Pay By Industry
Where Paralegals Work At A Glance
- Law firms employ most paralegals: legal services holds 75% of paralegal jobs in BLS's count for 2025, and government at all three levels 12%.
- Of the five largest employers BLS lists, the federal government pays the highest median, $81,470, and state government the lowest, $59,320. Law firms pay $61,770.
- In the May 2025 wage survey, medians in the ten industries that employ the most paralegals run from $58,150 to $99,500.
- The highest average pay is in small industries: the five with the highest mean wage employed 600 paralegals between them, against 304,820 in legal services.
- These figures sort pay by employer, not by practice area. A litigation paralegal and a real estate paralegal at the same firm count in the same industry.
Where do paralegals work? Mostly in law firms. The rest of the answer is a list of employers that keep legal work in house: government offices, insurers, banks and investment firms, and the offices that run companies. This page sorts them by how many paralegals they employ and by what they pay, from two BLS programs that count in different ways: the Occupational Outlook Handbook's employment projections for shares of jobs, and the OEWS wage survey for pay.
Where Do Paralegals Work? The Largest Employers
BLS counts 404,900 paralegal and legal assistant jobs in 2025 and names the five largest employers, with the median each paid in May 2025:
| Employer, as BLS names it | Share of paralegal jobs, 2025 | Median annual pay, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Legal services | 75% | $61,770 |
| Local government, excluding education and hospitals | 5% | $63,370 |
| Federal government, excluding postal service | 4% | $81,470 |
| State government, excluding education and hospitals | 3% | $59,320 |
| Finance and insurance | 3% | $80,120 |
The ABA's paralegal committee describes the same field from the employer's side. "Although private law firms continue to be the single largest employer of paralegals, good job opportunities also exist in several other markets in both the private and public sectors." In the private sector: "Some examples include corporate legal departments, insurance companies, estate and trust departments of large banks, hospitals and health care organizations, real estate and title insurance companies, non-profit organizations, and professional trade associations." And in the public sector: "Job opportunities in the public sector are available in community legal services programs, consumer organizations, offices of public defenders, prosecutors and attorneys general, city attorneys, a wide array of state and federal government agencies, and the judicial system."
Paralegal Pay By Employer Type
Among those five, the federal government pays the most, $81,470, and state government the least, $59,320. Law firms pay $61,770, $1,120 below the national median for paralegals and legal assistants of $62,890: the industry that employs most paralegals pays close to the middle. The OOH lists only these five, so the wage survey's finer industry tables below fill in the rest.
The Ten Industries That Employ The Most Paralegals
The OEWS wage survey counts the paralegals and legal assistants on each industry's payrolls and reports two pay figures: the mean, or average, and the median. These are the ten industries with the most of them in May 2025:
| Industry | Paralegals employed | Annual mean wage | Annual median wage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal services NAICS 541100 | 304,820 | $67,500 | $61,770 |
| Local government, excluding schools and hospitals NAICS 999300 | 19,620 | $66,570 | $63,370 |
| Federal executive branch NAICS 999100 | 15,960 | $86,330 | $81,470 |
| State government, excluding schools and hospitals NAICS 999200 | 12,090 | $62,190 | $59,320 |
| Management of companies and enterprises NAICS 551100 | 6,970 | $94,320 | $94,570 |
| Insurance carriers NAICS 524100 | 4,610 | $80,280 | $78,440 |
| Employment services NAICS 561300 | 2,690 | $70,650 | $60,710 |
| Management, scientific and technical consulting NAICS 541600 | 2,370 | $71,380 | $58,150 |
| Insurance agencies and brokerages NAICS 524200 | 2,180 | $80,010 | $79,810 |
| Securities and investments NAICS 523000 | 1,550 | $99,730 | $99,500 |
Two employment estimates here are less precise than the rest: BLS puts the relative standard error at 35.3% for management, scientific and technical consulting and 18.4% for insurance agencies and brokerages.
The best-paid large employer in the table is management of companies and enterprises, at a median of $94,570. BLS counts in that sector "establishments (except government establishments) that administer, oversee, and manage establishments of the company or enterprise and that normally undertake the strategic or organizational planning and decision making role of the company or enterprise", and adds: "Establishments in this sector perform essential activities that are often undertaken, in-house, by establishments in many sectors of the economy." So paralegals who work in a company's own legal department are spread across this row and their employer's industry, such as insurance carriers ($78,440) or securities and investments ($99,500).
Why An Average And A Median Differ
The two figures in each row measure different things. OEWS defines them:
A mean wage is an average wage. An occupational mean wage estimate is calculated by summing the wages of all the employees in a given occupation and then dividing the total wages by the number of employees. For example, an occupational median wage (50th percentile) estimate is the boundary between the highest paid 50 percent and the lowest paid 50 percent of workers in that occupation.
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Frequently Asked Questions
A few large salaries pull a mean up and leave the median where it is, so where the two sit far apart, pay is spread unevenly. In legal services the mean, $67,500, is $5,730 above the median, $61,770. In management of companies and enterprises the two nearly meet, a mean of $94,320 and a median of $94,570. Nationally, paralegals and legal assistants averaged $69,700 against a median of $62,890, a gap of $6,810.
The Highest-Paying Industries Employ Few Paralegals
Sort by average pay and a different list comes up. These five industries had the highest annual mean wage for paralegals in May 2025, and the employment beside each shows how small they are:
| Industry | Annual mean wage | Annual median wage | Paralegals employed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motor vehicle manufacturing NAICS 336100 | $120,320 | $128,830 | 40 |
| Lessors of nonfinancial intangible assets NAICS 533100 | $115,090 | $128,560 | 340 |
| Computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing NAICS 334100 | $112,720 | $103,540 | 60 |
| Semiconductor and electronic component manufacturing NAICS 334400 | $110,690 | $102,190 | 100 |
| Natural gas distribution NAICS 221200 | $110,200 | $106,820 | 60 |
Together they employed 600 paralegals and legal assistants, against 304,820 in legal services alone, and the motor vehicle manufacturing count carries a 29.7% relative standard error. So the highest-paying paralegal jobs, read by industry, are a few hundred seats.
Pay By Employer, Not By Specialty
Where paralegals work decides how BLS counts their pay: every figure on this page sorts paralegals by the industry of the employer that pays them. The OEWS rule: "Employees that perform essentially the same tasks are in the same occupation, whether or not they are in the same industry." So a litigation paralegal and a real estate paralegal at one law firm both count in legal services, and a paralegal doing the same work in an insurer's legal department counts under insurance carriers. The specialties BLS names, such as bankruptcy, intellectual property and litigation, describe duties, and the paralegal job description covers them.
Pay varies inside every row, too. The ABA lists the reasons: "Earnings vary considerably depending upon such factors as size of the community, geographical location, firm, nature of the legal practice, and the paralegal's educational background and work experience." Paralegal salary by state covers the geography, and for anyone weighing law school, paralegal vs. lawyer sets the two jobs side by side.
Common Questions About Where Paralegals Work
Where are most paralegals employed?
Which employers pay paralegals the most?
Do government paralegals earn more than law firm paralegals?
Where do paralegals work besides law firms?
Sources For Where Paralegals Work
- Employer shares (employment projections, 2025) and median pay in the five largest employing industries: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Paralegals and Legal Assistants, page last modified August 27, 2026.
- Employment, mean and median pay by industry: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Paralegals and Legal Assistants (SOC 23-2011), the OEWS Profiles ranking and each industry's OEWS table (NAICS 541100, 999300, 999100, 999200, 551100, 524100, 561300, 541600, 524200, 523000, 336100, 533100, 334100, 334400 and 221200).
- Definitions of the mean, the median and an occupation: BLS OEWS Frequently Asked Questions, last modified July 9, 2026; NAICS 55: BLS Industries at a Glance, Management of Companies and Enterprises (NAICS 55).
- Employers in the private and public sectors, and what pay depends on: ABA Standing Committee on Paralegals, Career Information.
- Every source read on October 5, 2026.