What document automation actually saves, in hours and dollars, for a Nevada law firm.
Every vendor claims enormous savings. Here is how to check that claim yourself: BLS wage benchmarks for Las Vegas-area legal roles and time estimates for the four mechanical tasks automation offsets, laid out so a skeptical Nevada trial lawyer can substitute their own numbers.
General information, not legal or financial advice. All assumptions are stated in plain sight. Full disclaimer (Part 2).
Start with what staff actually costs
To judge whether document automation pays, you need a defensible cost per hour for the roles doing the mechanical work today. The figures below draw from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data for the Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV metro area, falling back to Nevada statewide only when metro figures are unavailable. The conservative (lower) figure carries forward in every case.
| Role | BLS mapping | Conservative annual (source figure) |
Conservative hourly (annual / 2,080) |
Source & survey |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attorney | SOC 23-1011, Lawyers | $159,840 NV statewide mean; lower than LV metro mean of $163,760 |
$76.85 | BLS OEWS May 2023, NV statewide; corroborated by LAWCLERK.legal citing same survey |
| Law clerk (law-firm, not judicial) |
SOC 23-1012, Judicial Law Clerks No BLS code for private law-firm clerks exists; 23-1012 is the closest available code. LV metro suppressed (small occupation); NV statewide used. |
$60,000 Conservative judgment call below BLS NV statewide mean of $66,120 to reflect that judicial-clerk salaries pull the NV mean above typical small-firm rates; use $66,120 if you prefer strict BLS anchor |
$28.85 | BLS OEWS via O*NET, NV statewide, May 2024 survey ("BLS 2025 wage data"); Indeed LV 8-posting average $60,341/yr used as corroboration, not as the primary source |
| Paralegal | SOC 23-2011, Paralegals and Legal Assistants | $61,550 LV metro mean; lower of May 2024 LV mean ($61,550) and May 2023 LV average ($62,940); metro figure available so statewide not needed |
$29.59 | BLS OEWS May 2024, LV metro; independently reported by paralegaledu.org and SalaryNode, both citing BLS May 2024 OEWS |
| Legal assistant (admin / clerical role) |
SOC 43-6012, Legal Secretaries & Administrative Assistants BLS groups paralegals under 23-2011; for the lower paid admin support role, 43-6012 is the closer match |
$50,980 LV metro median; O*NET reports Nevada statewide mean and median as $51,540, which is close; conservative figure is the lower LV metro median |
$24.51 | BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine, May 2025 survey ("BLS 2025 wage data," updated May 19, 2026); LV metro median $50,980 confirmed; NV statewide $51,540 used as mean proxy |
What these figures represent: these are base compensation benchmarks from BLS employer surveys. They are not total employment cost. Actual cost per hour to the firm is higher once you add payroll taxes, benefits, and overhead. A common rule of thumb for total loaded cost is 1.25x to 1.35x the base salary. The analysis in Part 2 uses only base salary-derived hourly rates, so the conservative direction cuts against DilloLex: the real savings are likely larger than shown there.
The attorney rate used in Part 2 is the assumed billable rate of $250/hr (adjustable in Part 2), not the BLS-derived salary cost. When an attorney's time is freed from document prep, the relevant value is what that hour could earn rather than what the attorney costs on salary. The salary figures are used only for paralegal, law clerk, and legal assistant roles. No hour is counted in both columns; every offset is labeled either/or.
What the mechanical work actually takes
The time estimates below are illustrative, grounded in task structure (decision steps, sequential dependencies) rather than any specific firm's time records. Treat them as a range to pressure-test against your own experience. The goal is transparent math you can run with your own numbers.
DilloLex targets four categories of mechanical work:
- Intake triage: opening, reading, and naming unintelligible files. A client drops off a folder of "IMG_4471.pdf" and "scan_002.pdf." Someone opens each file, identifies it, renames it, and files it, waiting for OCR to finish before seeing the text. For a scanned, multi-page file, 2 to 5 minutes per document is a common estimate for the open-read-name-file cycle, not counting the OCR wait.
- Exhibit and disclosure assembly. Pulling documents for an NRCP 16.2 or a PI demand package means locating each record, Bates stamping it in Acrobat, building an index, and checking the redactions. On a 200-document matter file, a paralegal or legal assistant can spend a full day (6 to 8 hours) on a single disclosure package.
- Redaction scanning. Page-by-page PHI and PII marking in Acrobat on a 400-page records set runs 30 to 60 minutes for a first pass, plus review. Missed marks carry real risk, so an attorney or experienced paralegal must check the work. This is not a task you can delegate entirely.
- Appellate appendix assembly. NRAP 30 compliance (correct pagination across volumes, two indices, conforming format) routinely runs 1 to 2 days when assembled manually. On a typical case with a 250-page appendix, 8 to 12 paralegal or law-clerk hours is a reasonable conservative floor.