Paralegal and Legal Assistant Career Assessment

2What is a Paralegal and Legal Assistant?

A paralegal works under a lawyer’s supervision. You interview clients and witnesses, gather and organize records, look up statutes and past cases, and draft the actual documents — complaints, motions, contracts, wills, discovery requests, closing packets. You keep the calendar of deadlines, and you file with the court. What you cannot do is give legal advice, set a fee, take a case on your own, or represent someone in court. That line is not a technicality. Crossing it is practicing law without a license.

The Reality: Deadlines rule this job, and they are not flexible. A court filing deadline missed is not a bad day — it can end a client’s case and expose the firm. That pressure is the real cost of this work. Two other things to know going in: North Dakota pay at the top is well below the national top, and state employment is projected to be flat through 2034. What carries this job is turnover — about 70 openings a year, the most of any career in this group.

Your Responsibilities:

• Interview clients and witnesses and write up what they said
• Gather, number, and organize documents and records
• Research statutes, rules, and past cases
• Draft pleadings, motions, contracts, wills, and discovery
• Keep the deadline calendar and protect every date on it
• File documents with the court, electronically and in person
• Prepare exhibits and trial notebooks and help at hearings
• Keep every client matter confidential

The lawyer signs it. You are usually the one who built it.

3A Day in the Life

8:00 AM — Open the deadline calendar first. A response is due Thursday. Move it to the top.

8:30 AM — Call a client for the two documents still missing from their file.

9:30 AM — Research how a North Dakota court handled a similar question. Write a short summary.

11:00 AM — Draft a motion from the firm’s template. Check every name, date, and case number twice.

12:00 PM — Lunch.

1:00 PM — Walk to the courthouse to file, pick up a certified copy, and check a public record.

2:30 PM — Number and index 400 pages of records so the attorney can find anything in ten seconds.

4:30 PM — Confirm tomorrow’s deposition, then recheck Thursday’s deadline before you shut down.

Steady, detailed desk work — documents and dates — with trips to the courthouse and real contact with clients.

4Training in North Dakota

North Dakota does not license paralegals, and there is no ABA-approved paralegal program in the state. Both of those are worth understanding before you plan. Because the state does not license this job, no single school or exam is required — which means the training you pick is up to you, and employers judge it. Because no North Dakota school holds American Bar Association approval for a paralegal program (a search of the ABA’s own program directory returns no North Dakota results, americanbar.org), your realistic choices are an online associate degree you can take from here, a non-credit certificate through a North Dakota school’s continuing education office, or an out-of-state program. A related North Dakota two-year business or office degree plus a law-office job is also a real path, and it is the one many working North Dakota paralegals actually took.

Training Pathways:

• Associate degree in paralegal studies (about 2 years): The most common formal route. Rasmussen University enrolls North Dakota students at its Fargo campus for a 90-credit Paralegal AAS that is completed online, in as few as 18 months. Ask any program directly whether it is ABA-approved before you enroll, and ask what its graduates are actually doing now.
• Non-credit paralegal certificate (a few months to a year): Both UND and Bismarck State College run non-credit legal courses through their continuing education offices. These are shorter and cheaper than a degree. They are not a degree, and some employers treat them as much less. They can be a good add-on if you already have a degree in something else, or a way to test whether you like this work.
• Two-year business or office degree, then a law-office job (2 years, then learn on the job): Start as a legal secretary, receptionist, records clerk, or administrative assistant in a firm, a state’s attorney office, or the court system. Learn the documents and deadlines from the inside, then move up to paralegal. Be aware that legal secretary work itself is shrinking in North Dakota — about 320 positions now, projected down about 4% — so treat it as a door, not a destination.

Where to Train in North Dakota:

• Rasmussen University (Fargo campus, 4012 19th Avenue South) — Paralegal, AAS, 90 credits, 24 courses, as few as 18 months. Enroll through the Fargo campus; coursework is completed online. Rasmussen’s program page does not state ABA approval, so ask them directly — rasmussen.edu
• University of North Dakota (Grand Forks) — non-credit Paralegal Certificate and Advanced Paralegal Certificate through the Office of Extended Learning, delivered by CLS by BARBRI. Non-credit means it is not a degree and credits do not transfer. UND also lists Legal Secretary, Legal Investigation, and Advanced Legal Research and Writing courses — und.edu
• Bismarck State College (Bismarck) — online non-credit paralegal courses through BSC Continuing Education. Call BSC at 701-224-5400 and ask what is currently offered, what it costs, and what it does and does not lead to — bismarckstate.edu
• Minot State University (Minot) — Law and Legal Studies minor, 21 credits, on campus, in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Criminal Justice. This is a minor, not a paralegal degree, but paired with another bachelor’s degree it meets a common credential eligibility route — minotstateu.edu
• Bismarck State College, Lake Region State College, Williston State College, and NDSCS — none of these lists a paralegal degree in its catalog. Their business administration and office administration associate degrees are the realistic North Dakota two-year starting point, and they are inexpensive. Call each school to confirm before you rule it out
• Out of state or online — if ABA approval matters to you, and for some employers and one credential route it does, you will be looking outside North Dakota. Search the ABA’s own directory at americanbar.org rather than a third-party list site

Before You Start: High school diploma or GED. Strong reading, writing, and spelling. The ability to be exact — a wrong date or a wrong case number is a real problem. Good computer skills, because everything is filed electronically now. You will need to pass a background check at most firms and at the court system.

Tip: Start with financial aid and scholarships. Fill out the FAFSA, ask the school’s financial aid office what you qualify for, and ask an employer whether they help pay for school. That is where the money starts. After that, a career counselor or Job Service North Dakota may be able to help with what is left over, like tuition, books, a laptop, or exam fees. What can be paid for depends on the program and on your own situation, so ask before you enroll rather than after. Worth asking about specifically: two-year degrees that train you for a job, like civil engineering technology, land surveying, mechatronics, electronics, or instrumentation. North Dakota two-year colleges also cost far less than a university. Ask about paid summer internships too — engineering firms, plants, and survey crews hire students while they are still in school.

5Certification & Licensing

North Dakota does not license or register paralegals. Every paralegal credential is voluntary and national. This is verified, not assumed. The North Dakota Supreme Court’s Board of Law Examiners admits and licenses attorneys under North Dakota Century Code chapter 27-11, and it says nothing about paralegals or legal assistants (ndcourts.gov). What does govern your work is North Dakota Rule of Professional Conduct 5.3, which makes the supervising lawyer responsible for you. Under that rule a lawyer may delegate most tasks to you, but may never delegate forming the attorney-client relationship, setting a fee, giving a legal opinion, or accepting responsibility for the work product — and the rule requires the lawyer to make reasonable efforts to ensure that clients, courts, and other lawyers know you are not licensed to practice law (ndcourts.gov). Rule 5.3 also lists what counts as being qualified: graduating from an ABA-approved program, a bachelor’s degree plus paralegal training, passing a national certifying exam, or seven or more years of supervised experience.

Voluntary National Credentials:

• No North Dakota license or registration — confirmed against the Board of Law Examiners, which handles attorney admission and licensure only (ndcourts.gov)
• CP — Certified Paralegal (NALA) — the best known. Accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies through 2029; NALA says it is the first and only NCCA-accredited certification serving the legal community. Over 8,900 people hold it (nala.org)
• CP eligibility — three routes (NALA) — (1) finish a paralegal program that is ABA-approved, or an associate or bachelor’s in paralegal studies, or a program of at least 60 semester hours including 15 substantive legal courses; (2) a bachelor’s degree in any field plus one year of paralegal experience, or at least 15 semester hours of substantive paralegal coursework; (3) a high school diploma or equivalent plus five years of paralegal experience plus at least 20 hours of substantive continuing legal education in the prior two years (nala.org)
• ACP — Advanced Certified Paralegal (NALA) — a further step after the CP, in a chosen practice area (nala.org)
• CRP — CORE Registered Paralegal (NFPA) — earned by passing the Paralegal CORE Competency Exam, or PCCE, which NFPA built for early-career and entry-level paralegals. 125 multiple-choice questions, 15 of them unscored, in 2.5 hours (paralegals.org)
• RP — Registered Paralegal (NFPA) — earned by passing the Paralegal Advanced Competency Exam, or PACE. 200 multiple-choice questions in 4 hours. NFPA says PACE eligibility is more restrictive and the exam is for people with both a full paralegal education and years of practical experience (paralegals.org)
• NFPA eligibility rules for both — you must meet the education and experience requirements, have no felony convictions, and not be under suspension or revocation of any certificate or license. Applications require a notarized affidavit of education and experience, a copy of your diploma, and official transcripts (paralegals.org)
• Local associations — North Dakota has two NALA-affiliated groups: the Red River Valley Paralegal Association, founded in 1982, serving eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota with year-round continuing legal education and an annual seminar (rrvpa.org), and the Western Dakota Association of Legal Assistants (wdala.org). Both are listed by NALA (nala.org)

The Exams: NALA’s CP is two exams taken in order. The Knowledge Exam is 120 multiple-choice questions — 100 scored and 20 pre-test — in 3 hours, offered year round. Only after passing it do you take the Skills Exam, a 2-hour written essay exam offered in February, April, July, and October. You get up to three attempts per section within 365 days, with a 90-day wait between attempts and a retake fee each time. NALA does not publish a percentage to pass; the standard is set by a panel of content experts using the Angoff method, and your result comes back as Pass or Fail. NFPA’s two exams are described above.

Cost: NALA CP first-time exam: $325 for members, $375 for non-members. Military rate $240 and $280. Paralegal student rate $150 and $175. Each retake is $150 (nala.org). NFPA PCCE: $300 for members, $325 for non-members. NFPA PACE: $325 for members, $350 for non-members. All NFPA fees are non-refundable (paralegals.org). School is the bigger cost in every case.

Keeping It Current: NALA requires 50 hours of continuing legal education every five years to keep the CP. Five of those 50 must be legal ethics, and no more than 10 of the remaining 45 may be non-substantive topics like office management or software. Failing to return the completed affidavit with the recertification fee revokes the certification (nala.org). NFPA uses a two-year renewal cycle for the CRP and RP, but the exact hours are not published on its public certification pages — ask NFPA directly before you plan around it.

6Salary & Job Outlook

North Dakota Paralegal and Legal Assistant Pay (May 2025):

• Starting out (bottom 10–25%): $21.78–$23.70/hour ($45,300–$49,290/year)
• Middle (median — half earn more, half earn less): $28.57/hour ($59,430/year)
• Experienced (top 25–10%): $31.79–$37.71/hour ($66,120–$78,430/year)

What that means: The middle North Dakota paralegal earns about $28.57 an hour, or about $59,430 a year. Compare that to the country honestly. Starting pay here is about even with the national bottom — $21.78 an hour here against $21.51 nationally. But the gap widens as you go up, and it gets wide at the top: the top tenth in North Dakota earns about $78,430 a year, while the top tenth nationally earns about $101,500. The reason is mostly who hires here — small and mid-size firms, county offices, and the courts rather than big-city corporate firms. What that means for you: the entry pay is competitive, the ceiling is not, and moving up usually means moving to a bigger firm, into a specialty like oil and gas title work or litigation support, or into a supervising role.

Jobs in North Dakota: About 660 people do this work in ND today. By 2034, that should be about 660 (about 1% growth — essentially flat). Expect about 70 job openings every year in ND from growth and people retiring or changing jobs. Across the U.S., the change is little or no change — about 0%.

Outlook: Flat on paper, steady in practice — and the best opening count in this group. About 660 people do this work in North Dakota, and the state projects the same number in 2034. But roughly 70 positions open every year, because people retire, move, go to law school, or change firms. That is the most of any career in this group — more than technical sales and industrial design put together. Nationally the picture is the same story: essentially no growth, but about 39,300 openings a year. Do not read flat as closed. Read it as a job you get by being ready when a seat opens, not by riding a wave.

Who Hires in ND: Private law firms of every size, from two lawyers in a small town to the larger Fargo and Bismarck firms. Also: the North Dakota court system, which posts paralegal openings in Bismarck, Dickinson, and elsewhere (ndcourts.gov); state’s attorney and public defender offices; the Attorney General and other state agencies; tribal governments and tribal courts; banks, title companies, and insurance companies; hospitals and health systems; and energy companies, where oil and gas title and land work is a real North Dakota specialty.

Work Setting: A law office or a government office. Desk work with two screens, a phone, and a lot of paper and scanned records. Regular trips to the courthouse to file, pull records, or sit in on a hearing. Occasional travel to a client, a deposition, or a trial. Some firms allow partial remote work; the courthouse part is not remote.

Physical Demands: Low. Sitting and reading for long stretches, which means eye strain and back strain are the real risks — a good chair and setup matter. Some lifting and carrying of banker’s boxes of files, and walking to and around the courthouse. Screen-reading and magnification software are common and reasonable requests.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, North Dakota, May 2025 (SOC 23-2011); North Dakota and U.S. long-term employment projections 2024–2034, via O*NET OnLine. Numbers are rounded.

7Where This Leads

Path 1: Legal Secretary or Legal Assistant — A common first job while you finish school.

Path 2: Paralegal — Full document, research, and deadline responsibility.

Path 3: Senior or Specialty Paralegal — Litigation, oil and gas title, estates, real estate, or corporate.

Path 4: Certified Paralegal — CP or RP earned. More responsibility and better pay.

Path 5: Paralegal Manager — Run the paralegal team and the workflow in a bigger firm.

Path 6: Court or Agency Staff — Move into the court system, a state’s attorney office, or a state agency.

8The Real Talk

What's Great:

• A real two-year entry into the legal field
• The most yearly openings in this group
• Work in nearly every North Dakota county
• Real legal work, not just filing
• Specialties like oil and gas title pay more
• Good ground if you ever want law school

What's Hard:

• Deadlines you absolutely cannot miss
• Pay at the top well below the national top
• Flat projected growth in North Dakota
• No ABA-approved program in the state
• You do the work, the lawyer gets the credit
• Hard facts in some cases stay with you

Be Honest: Are you exact — really exact — with dates, names, and numbers? Can you carry a deadline you cannot miss without losing sleep over it? Can you keep every client’s business private, including from your family? And can you do skilled work that someone else signs their name to?

9Part 1: What Attracts You?

10Part 2: Are You Ready?

11Part 3: Your Next Move

Your Paralegal and Legal Assistant Assessment Results