{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/paralegals-and-legal-assistants/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Paralegals and Legal Assistants",
    "soc_code": "23-2011",
    "category": "Legal",
    "us_employment": 392880,
    "median_annual_wage": 62890
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 33,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 8,
    "embodiment": 5,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 7,
    "judgment_accountability": 9
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "An 8 rather than a 4 reflects that first-pass document review, privilege coding, deposition digests, and boilerplate discovery drafting are already being handed to review platforms and LLMs, while calendaring against local rules, e-filing through CM/ECF and state portals with clerks who reject for margin violations, trial-exhibit prep, and running down a records custodian who won't answer email still require a person tracking a live docket.",
    "embodiment": "A 5 puts this just above pure desk work: the job is overwhelmingly screen-based, but there are runs to the courthouse for hand-filings and certified copies, banker's boxes and exhibit binders to assemble, trial-bag duty during a two-week jury trial, and client signature-gathering — physical tasks that occupy days, not hours, and never leave controlled indoor settings.",
    "liability_shield": "A 4 because there is no paralegal licence in any US jurisdiction, NALA's CP and NFPA's RP are voluntary and rarely required to be hired, and the unauthorized-practice-of-law statutes cut against you — you cannot give legal advice, sign pleadings, or appear, so malpractice exposure and Rule 5.3 supervisory duty sit entirely with the attorney whose name is on the filing.",
    "trust_premium": "A 7 recognizes that long-tenured paralegals do become the person the client calls about their case status and the one the partner trusts with the messy file, but the engagement letter, the fee, and the relationship of record belong to the attorney, and clients switch firms without asking who the paralegal was.",
    "judgment_accountability": "A 9 covers real discretion — deciding what's responsive versus privileged in a first pass, flagging a limitations date, judging which of 40,000 documents the associate actually needs — exercised inside a structure where every consequential call is reviewed and signed by someone else before it leaves the building."
  },
  "rationale": "The bulk of the modal paralegal's day — document review and coding, drafting discovery responses and routine motions, cite-checking, deposition summaries, records requests, and case-file organization — is exactly the text work large language models now do at usable quality and at a fraction of the billable cost. What resists is the physical and procedural layer: filing in courts with idiosyncratic clerks, chasing witnesses and records custodians, managing exhibits at trial, and knowing which judge's chambers wants what. Critically, paralegals carry no license and sign nothing — the supervising attorney owns the liability, so there is no regulatory floor under this job the way there is for nurses or CPAs.",
  "outlook": "Expect headcount to shrink and the role to bifurcate: high-volume document-review paralegals get squeezed hard, while procedural specialists, e-discovery operators, and client-facing case managers absorb the surviving work at higher pay.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: as bulk doc review and first-draft motions are absorbed by tools, the remaining paralegal day concentrates in AI-output verification against the record, court-specific procedural compliance, and exhibit/discovery chain-of-custody work. Watch for firm job postings retitled 'legal AI reviewer' or 'e-discovery verification specialist' with the routine drafting stripped out. Also: judges' standing orders requiring certification that every cited authority was human-verified (already issued by Judge Brantley Starr, N.D. Tex., and dozens of others after Mata v. Avianca) create a named verification task that must be performed by a person.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State bar or supreme court adoption of a licensed-paraprofessional tier that lets non-lawyers sign and file in defined matters and carry personal duties — Utah's Licensed Paralegal Practitioner, Arizona's Legal Paraprofessional (ABS/LP program), Minnesota and Oregon pilots, Washington's revived LLLT-style proposals. If a state extends LP scope to family, landlord-tenant, or debt matters and requires the LP to sign the pleading, a genuine liability floor appears for that subset.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Rule 11 / FRCP 26(g) style certification extended so that a designated non-attorney signer must attest to the completeness of an e-discovery production or the verification of AI-generated citations, with sanctions exposure. Watch federal district standing orders and state analogues that name the verifying individual rather than only the firm.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Privilege-review and responsiveness calls in e-discovery escalating in consequence as productions grow: if courts continue clawback and waiver rulings (FRE 502(b) disputes) that turn on whether a competent human reviewed flagged documents, the paralegal owning the privilege log becomes the named decision-maker under ambiguity.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Realistic ceiling is roughly the mid-40s, and only in states that create a signing paraprofessional license — which would cover a minority of paralegals working in specific practice areas. Trust premium has no credible lever: clients pay for the attorney's name, and paralegal time is billed precisely because it is the cheap substitute, so a human-preference premium cannot form here. Big-firm litigation support staffing is the exposed core and none of these levers reach it."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      33,
      30
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "COOKED",
      "COOKED"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 290410,
        "wage": 50410
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 309940,
        "wage": 50940
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 329870,
        "wage": 51740
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 332720,
        "wage": 52920
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 336250,
        "wage": 56230
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 345240,
        "wage": 59200
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 354890,
        "wage": 60970
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 367220,
        "wage": 61010
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 392880,
        "wage": 62890
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 35.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}