Court Clerk
| Median wage (USD) | 48700 |
|---|---|
| Projected employment growth (%) | 3 |
| AI exposure (%) | 59 |
| Maximum exposure (%) | 87 |
| Source | eloundou |
| What AI changes in this occupation | Data entry, filing and formal document checking are automated Docket preparation and routine notices become AI-assisted Judging whether a filing complies with procedure, and serving court users, remain the core of the job |
| Key skills | Augmented court administration · case file and register management (digitization, integrity) · procedural compliance review · public-facing reception and explanation · case management and document research tools |
| Courses to get ahead | Legal Tech and the Digital Transformation of Law · Coursera · 2 weeks, 10 hours per week · 91 · The course that best matches the gesture that is changing: the digitization of the court file. You learn to design and control the digital document chain instead of enduring it — which makes you accountable for the integrity of the file rather than a data-entry operator. AI in Law: Research, Risk, and Legal Drafting · Coursera · 4 weeks · 89 · AI-assisted drafting is already inside court administration: notices, hearing notices, forms. The course also covers the risks — hallucination, confidentiality, verification — that is, exactly the control the court clerk must keep over the AI's output. An Introduction to American Law · Coursera · 1 week, 10 hours per week · 85 · The foundation that resists: what separates a procedurally valid filing from an inadmissible one. It is the call AI suggests but does not own, and the one you are personally accountable for. Introduction to Generative AI · Coursera · 1 week, about 1 hour · 80 Cybersecurity for Everyone · Coursera · 4 weeks · 76 Business Writing · Coursera · 4 weeks · 73 |
| Occupations to pivot toward | Paralegal · 61010 · 0 · 45 Tax Examiner · 62370 · -1 · 68 General Office Clerk · 43630 · -7 · 50 |
| Skills to acquire for the pivot | Eloundou's measured exposure is 59% (human β) and rises to 87% (human ζ): entering and updating case files and registers, preparing court dockets, answering routine public questions, filing archives and checking that forms are complete are largely delegable to AI, but assessing whether a filing complies with procedure, advising on a specific situation, verifying that documents are authentic and coordinating with judges, lawyers and parties remain human. The ζ of 87% says nearly nine tenths of the job are at least partly transformable; the β of 59% says that today AI does close to three fifths of it without supervision. Within the repository, the court clerk sits above the accountant and auditor (52), the paralegal (45) and the general office clerk (50), level with the secretary and administrative assistant (57), but well behind the tax examiner (68): this is the signature of a court-administration job — what gets automated is file upkeep and standard answers, what resists is the rule of procedure and contact with the court user. Method note: the GPT-4 self-rated series (β 70, ζ 96) is kept in expositionGpt4 and is not displayed, in line with the decision of 21 August 2026. BLS growth is +3% from 2025 to 2035 for court, municipal and license clerks (SOC 43-4031): their 187,000 jobs in 2025 are projected to reach 193,300, about 6,300 more. BLS ties this to local governments, which continue to need these workers to prepare case dockets, draft agendas and issue permits: this is a job anchored in a legal duty to keep records, not in an economic cycle. For comparison, the "information clerks" group in which BLS files this occupation declines 2% over the same period (1,287,600 to 1,257,600 jobs, -30,100), because it also contains hotel desk clerks and receptionists; all occupations grow 3%. This card's three pivots point the same way: the paralegal is flat (0%), the tax examiner slips slightly (-1%) and the general office clerk loses 7% — court administration holds up better than general secretarial work, but it does not take off. The court clerk's median salary is $48,700 a year ($23.41 an hour): the 2025 figure from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for code 43-4031, as published on the occupation's O*NET page. The Occupational Outlook Handbook has no page for this code: it covers it inside the "Information clerks" page, whose displayed median pay ($45,430) is for the whole group rather than for court administration — it is the group figure that understates the job, by $3,270. For context: all occupations stand at $50,980, the "information clerks" group at $45,430 and the "information and record clerks" subgroup at $43,870. The court clerk edges past the general office clerk ($43,630) but remains below the paralegal ($61,010) and the tax examiner ($62,370), which reflects its position well: more than a clerical post, less than a legal one. Consistency check: the May 2023 edition of the same survey gave $46,110 for this code, and the group median was already lower then. |
| GPT-4 exposure — beta / zeta (%) | 70 · 96 |