Utilization and Salary Survey to be Unveiled This Fall
by Robyn Dotterer, Utilization Chair - Paralegal Division
The Paralegal Division of the Utah State Bar is pleased to announce an exciting upcoming event. We are producing the first on-line Utilization and Salary Survey under the auspices of the Utah State Bar web site!
What this means is that the survey can be filled out by attorneys, paralegals or your office legal administrators on line on the Bar web site at any time - day or night. Anyone who has access to the Utah State Bar web site can fill out the survey for themselves or their paralegals. We are hoping to reach as many of you as we reasonably can to make the survey as comprehensive as possible.
If you have a paralegal in your office who is not a member of the Paralegal Division, please pass this information along to them to fill out the survey. If you want to fill it out yourself on behalf of your paralegal, that's fine too. Or, if you want your office legal administrator to fill it out for your firm, you can do that. We will also notify the Association of Legal Administrators members as well as members of the Legal Assistants Association of Utah of the on-line survey and request their participation.
Our goal is to be able to respond to the requests we get from attorneys and paralegals alike on questions such as: how much should I pay my paralegal; what benefits do other paralegals have; should I pay my paralegal bonuses; do other law firms pay bonuses; what can I ask my paralegal to do that is billable to my client; do other paralegals get a raise every year; do other law firms pay for paralegals to attend CLE functions. That gives you an idea of what we are trying to accomplish.
We will be able to compile the information to answer a number of questions on what types of benefits are being paid to Utah paralegals as well as what types of functions paralegals are being used for in other law firms in Utah.
We are optimistic that we can then have a usable database to do a utilization and salary survey as deemed to be needed by the Division or as our profession changes and requires updated information. We believe that a survey every two years would be adequate to meet the needs of our members as well as the needs of the Utah State Bar members.
Please watch for your e-news announcement on when the survey is available on line and please help us put together a useful and effective database of information - respond to the survey. It is anticipated that it will take less than 15 minutes to respond and the information will be hugely valuable to us all!