Legal secretaries are one of the least happy careers in the United States.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, legal secretaries rate their career happiness 2.7 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 12% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy legal secretaries are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Court reporter | 3.0 | $57k |
| Judicial law clerk | 3.0 | $51k |
| Probation officer | 2.9 | $60k |
| Customs inspector | 2.9 | $84k |
| Recruiter | 2.7 | $62k |
| Legal secretary | 2.7 | $48k |
| Paralegal | 2.7 | $56k |
| Compliance manager | 2.7 | $125k |
| Lawyer | 2.6 | $128k |
| Underwriter | 2.5 | $76k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are legal secretaries happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do legal secretaries find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as legal secretaries?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are legal secretary’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are legal secretaries making the best use of their abilities?
Are legal secretaries happy with their salary?
Legal secretaries rated their satisfaction with their salaries 3.0/5. Few are explicitly unhappy with their salaries, with most legal secretaries having generally positive views of their salary.
We asked legal secretaries how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
3.0 out of 5 stars
1478 legal secretaries
12% of legal secretaries rated their compensation 5 stars
24% of legal secretaries rated their compensation 4 stars
29% of legal secretaries rated their compensation 3 stars
20% of legal secretaries rated their compensation 2 stars
15% of legal secretaries rated their compensation 1 stars
Do legal secretaries find their jobs meaningful?
On average, legal secretaries rate the meaningfulness of their work a 2.4/5. The majority of legal secretaries struggle to find any sort of meaning in their work, likely resulting in less satisfaction with the career overall.
We asked legal secretaries how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
2.4 out of 5 stars
1484 legal secretaries
7% of legal secretaries rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
11% of legal secretaries rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
23% of legal secretaries rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
29% of legal secretaries rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
30% of legal secretaries rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as legal secretaries?
Legal secretaries rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.5/5. The majority of legal secretaries find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked legal secretaries how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.5 out of 5 stars
1597 legal secretaries
22% of legal secretaries rated their career fit 5 stars
32% of legal secretaries rated their career fit 4 stars
27% of legal secretaries rated their career fit 3 stars
11% of legal secretaries rated their career fit 2 stars
8% of legal secretaries rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a legal secretary’s work environment?
As a whole, legal secretaries rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.2/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked legal secretaries how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.2 out of 5 stars
1588 legal secretaries
16% of legal secretaries rated their work environment 5 stars
29% of legal secretaries rated their work environment 4 stars
27% of legal secretaries rated their work environment 3 stars
17% of legal secretaries rated their work environment 2 stars
10% of legal secretaries rated their work environment 1 stars
Are legal secretaries making the best use of their abilities?
Former legal secretaries on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 2.7/5. Legal secretaries tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked legal secretaries how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
2.7 out of 5 stars
1601 legal secretaries
10% of legal secretaries rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
16% of legal secretaries rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
26% of legal secretaries rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
27% of legal secretaries rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
22% of legal secretaries rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars