AI Automation Index

Will AI Replace Paralegals and Legal Assistants?

Task-level automation exposure for Paralegals and Legal Assistants: 12 O*NET tasks scored against their work activities, plus the simulator.

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Developed & audited by Gini Loh

Automation Exposure

55% weighted task index

12 of 12 tasks scored

Median Salary

$62,890 / year

BLS OEWS, May 2025 — this exact occupation

Employment Level

Very High

392,880 people hold this job — size, not growth

Projected 2025–35

-0.3% employment change

40,800 openings a year · BLS line item

Pay by state

BLS OEWS publishes 54 state estimates for this occupation. Each is its own survey estimate, not the national median adjusted for local prices.

$37,920 – $89,750

Highest medians

District of Columbia $89,750

Washington $79,400

Colorado $78,190

Massachusetts $77,640

California $77,390

Lowest medians

Guam $37,920

Puerto Rico $38,770

Mississippi $46,180

Alabama $47,260

Arkansas $47,420

State figures come from the 23-2011 row in the May 2025 state panel. States where the estimate was suppressed or too small to publish are absent.

What the score is made of

Each task is mapped to its work activities, scored for AI automation potential, and weighted by how important those activities are to the job. These are the components.

Automation potential 55%

Importance-weighted mean of the scored tasks. This is the headline index.

Physical work 0%

Share of weighted tasks in hands-on or machine-operating work activities.

Judgment & influence 21%

Share in analysis, decisions, teaching, directing, advising, or caring for others.

Routine administration 45%

Share in documenting, recording, and administrative activities.

Rewritten by O*NET 0%

Share of weighted tasks O*NET rewrote in a recent update. Reported, not folded into the score.

Consequence of error 22/100 Low

O*NET's own rating of how serious an uncorrectable mistake would be here — respondents, not us. Deliberately not in the index: the score measures what AI can do with the task content, and multiplying it by stakes would be our judgment dressed as data.

Constituent Task Mix

12 tasks for this occupation, weighted by work-activity importance. Shares below are of total task weight, not task count.

High exposure (≥ 60% of the task is automatable) 47%

5 tasks

Medium exposure (≥ 35%) 37%

5 tasks

Low exposure (below 35%) 15%

2 tasks

How would you survive?

Move your week away from the high-exposure tasks and toward the ones that need judgment. The simulator recalculates the index as you shift the mix.

Simulate Upskilling →

Emerging & rewritten tasks

Tasks O*NET added or rewrote for this occupation in its recent updates (05/2025 – 08/2026), with who proposed them. Additions are not in the scored task inventory — they are new work O*NET is still measuring, so they appear here and nowhere in the index. A Revision replaces a task that is scored, which is why only those move the "Rewritten by O*NET" share.

New 08/2024 · Incumbent

Manage attorneys' calendars and schedule meetings.
New 08/2024 · Incumbent

Request, review, and summarize relevant records for the cases.

Constituent Tasks

#18491 · Core · 70% automatable

Prepare affidavits or other documents, such as legal correspondence, and organize and maintain documents in paper or electronic filing system.

information retrieval — Organize and index legal documents

Maintain the order of legal documents. Prepare legal documents.

#23994 · Core · 58% automatable

Prepare, edit, or review legal documents, including legislation, briefs, pleadings, appeals, wills, contracts, and real estate closing statements.

text generation — Draft legal documents; attorney owns final

Prepare legal documents.

#21062 · Core · 66% automatable

Investigate facts and law of cases and search pertinent sources, such as public records and internet sources, to determine causes of action and to prepare cases.

information retrieval — Legal research strong, decision human

Research relevant legal materials to aid decision making.

#18492 · Core · 66% automatable

Prepare for trial by performing tasks such as organizing exhibits.

text generation — Draft legal/regulatory docs; human verifies

Identify implications for cases from legal precedents or other legal information. Prepare information or documentation related to legal or regulatory matters.

#18493 · Core · 33% automatable

Meet with clients and other professionals to discuss details of cases.

interpersonal — Court staff conferral is relational and context-bound

Meet with individuals involved in legal processes to provide information and clarify issues. Confer with court staff to clarify information.

#1636 · Core · 64% automatable

Gather and analyze research data, such as statutes, decisions, and legal articles, codes, and documents.

information retrieval — Legal research strong, decision human

Evaluate information related to legal matters in public or personal records. Research relevant legal materials to aid decision making.

#18494 · Supplemental · 35% automatable

File pleadings with court clerks.

text generation — Broad clerical tasks partly automatable, human oversees exceptions

Perform administrative or clerical tasks. Serve court ordered documents.

#1639 · Supplemental · 55% automatable

Direct and coordinate law office activity, including delivery of subpoenas.

decision support — Legal scheduling coordination is largely clerical with judgment

Coordinate legal schedules or activities.

#1638 · Supplemental · 12% automatable

Call upon witnesses to testify at hearings.

interpersonal — Legal representation is accountability-bearing human advocacy

Represent the interests of clients in legal proceedings.

#18496 · Supplemental · 42% automatable

Arbitrate disputes between parties and assist in the real estate closing process, such as by reviewing title searches.

information retrieval — Legal record evaluation aided, human decides

Evaluate information related to legal matters in public or personal records. Arbitrate disputes between parties to resolve legal conflicts.

#1642 · Supplemental · 50% automatable

Appraise and inventory real and personal property for estate planning.

data analysis — Digital inventory records reconcile well; physical counts need humans

Evaluate condition of properties. Appraise property values. Inventory materials or equipment.

#1641 · Supplemental · 82% automatable

Keep and monitor legal volumes to ensure that the law library is up-to-date.

information retrieval — Organize and index legal documents

Maintain the order of legal documents.

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Community Sentiment

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Method

How this was scored

1. Tasks. O*NET task statements for this occupation, from a release whose newest record is dated 08/2026.
2. Work activities. Each task maps to 1–5 Detailed Work Activities; each activity belongs to one of 41 Generalized Work Activities that O*NET rates for importance (1–5) in this occupation.
3. Automation potential. Every work activity carries one score for how far current AI can perform it end-to-end. Tasks inherit the mean of their activities.
4. Weighting. Task weight = 0.35 + 0.65 × (importance − 1)/4, scaled by how often the task is performed and by 0.7 for Supplemental tasks. Importance is the task's own O*NET rating where it exists (18,369 of 18,838 tasks); the rest inherit their work activities' importance. The index is the weighted mean.

Check: across the 910 occupations where O*NET also rates how far machine speed sets the pace, this index moves opposite to it (Spearman ρ = -0.49). The more a job is paced by equipment, the less of its task content AI can address — the relationship you would expect if the scoring is working.

Sources · O*NET 31.0 (task records to 08/2026) · BLS OEWS May 2025 · BLS projections 2025-2035 · rubric v2.1 · tasks for O*NET, not a forecast

See the full method →

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