NJ Civil Service Navigator

Legal Assistant Family

Career series with 3 positions across 3 levels

New Jersey classifies Legal Assistant as a 3-level family, 3 titles in all, built for step-by-step advancement.

Entry is typically through Legal Assistant 3 Office of Administrative Law, advancing through the ladder toward Legal Assistant 1 Office of Administrative Law. Pay across the family spans $79,844 to $148,187, around the 78th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 9 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Office of Administrative Law.

Legal Assistant supervises titles such as Legal Secretary and Legal Specialist.

3
Positions
3
Career Levels
1
Specializations
Salary Range: $79,844 - $148,187/year

Specializations

Office Of Administrative Law

Positions in This Family

What the Legal Assistant family covers

New Jersey classifies Legal Assistant as a 3-level series holding 3 separate title codes. Every title in it is a state title, so the employer is a state department, commission or authority rather than a county or municipality.

Legal titles in New Jersey split into two groups that look similar and are not. Deputy attorneys general, public defenders and public advocates are unclassified: they are appointed, not examined, and their pay is negotiated inside a schedule rather than earned by stepping through it. Hearing officers, appeals examiners and paralegal support titles are ordinary classified positions filled the usual way. Both groups cluster in Law and Public Safety, the Office of Administrative Law and the agencies that run their own hearings, so the work is closer to administrative adjudication than to courtroom practice.

The ladder, ordered by pay

Sorted by pay instead of by title number, the Legal Assistant family stacks up as follows. Note that the numbers in these titles do not run in pay order. In this family a lower number sits higher on the ladder, which is a New Jersey convention that catches people out when they read a title list top to bottom.

The distance from the bottom of Legal Assistant 3 Office of Administrative Law to the top of Legal Assistant 1 Office of Administrative Law is $68,343, an increase of about 86% over the entry minimum.

What each title does

The specifications themselves are the clearest guide to what separates these titles. Here is how each one opens.

Getting in: the stated requirements

Across the 3 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a doctoral degree on 3 of them. Stated experience runs from 1 year at the lowest rung to 3 at the highest, which is the main thing separating one level from the next.

On how the jobs are filled: 3 are competitive, filled from an eligible list after an open competitive or promotional examination.

Who actually employs these titles

9 people appear on the state payroll under 3 of these titles, at 1 agency. Office of Administrative Law alone accounts for about 100% of them.

  • Office of Administrative Law — 9 employees

Median actual pay varies across the family, from $87,980 for Legal Assistant 3 Office of Administrative Law up to $129,353 for Legal Assistant 1 Office of Administrative Law. Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.

State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.

How the pay is set

Titles in this family are paid on the A-P-R-S salary schedule. See every step in that schedule. Bargaining is handled by CWA. Union contracts and rights are collected here.

Where these jobs exist

Hiring for this family runs through state service. Departments, commissions and boards fill these titles from eligible lists built by the Civil Service Commission, so the route in is an announcement and a filing deadline rather than a posting you apply to directly. What state jurisdiction means, and a breakdown of who employs what.

Related titles elsewhere in the plan

Nearby in the plan, ranked by how distinctive the shared terms are rather than by how many words happen to match.

Families next to this one

New Jersey's classification plan links families by shared terminology and by the routes people actually take between them. These sit closest to Legal Assistant.

Common questions about Legal Assistant jobs

How many separate Legal Assistant classifications does New Jersey have?

The Legal Assistant family holds 3 title codes arranged across 3 levels. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.

How much is a Legal Assistant paid?

Published salary data for this family runs from $79,844 at the bottom of Legal Assistant 3 Office of Administrative Law to $148,187 at the top of Legal Assistant 1 Office of Administrative Law. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.

Is there a civil service test for Legal Assistant?

Yes for most of the family. 3 of the 3 titles are in the competitive division, which means appointment comes from an eligible list built by an open competitive or promotional examination.

What are the requirements to become a Legal Assistant?

The most common education requirement in this family is a doctoral degree, named on 3 of the 3 titles. Stated experience ranges from 1 to 3 years depending on the rung. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.

Which agencies employ Legal Assistant staff?

State payroll records show 9 people in this family across 1 agency, with Office of Administrative Law the largest at 9. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.

Is Legal Assistant 1 higher or lower than Legal Assistant 3?

In this family the lower number is the more senior title. New Jersey's level numbering does not run in pay order, and reading the titles by number alone will give you the ladder upside down. The list above is sorted by what each title actually pays.