Compared with the local labor market
Legal Secretary 1 pay vs. New Jersey
Across all employers in New Jersey, the median wage for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants — about 4,160 people — is $63,080. Office of the Public Defender pays a median base salary of $48,362 for this role, 23% below that figure — about the 24th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
Where Office of the Public Defender sits in the local pay range
$41,900
$48,910
$63,080
$76,100
$89,010
Office of the Public Defender median · $48,362
The bar is the range of annual wages for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants across every employer in New Jersey, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Office of the Public Defender’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants — about 156,280 people — is $55,570. Office of the Public Defender’s median base salary is 13% below that national figure, about the 34th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
$36,500
$44,450
$55,570
$71,970
$91,730
Office of the Public Defender median · $48,362
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the New Jersey range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 66 of 68 people in this role paid at least $25,000 in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Office of the Public Defender is $48,915, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare departments
This role across New Jersey
Legal Secretary 1 is held in 3 New Jersey departments. In Office of the Public Defender, the median of $62,710 ranks #1 of 3.
Highest-paying departments for this role
Median total compensation for the Legal Secretary 1 role in other New Jerseydepartments (highest first). Each bar links to that department’s page for this role.