The conservative savings total and hardware payback, for a small Nevada law firm.
Part 1 established the BLS wage benchmarks and the time estimates for the four mechanical tasks. This page runs the numbers: four scenario calculations, a conservative monthly total, hardware payback scenarios, where the freed time actually goes, and the data sources. If you landed here first, start with Part 1 for the wages and methodology.
General information, not legal or financial advice. All assumptions are stated in plain sight. Full disclaimer.
The example firm
The example is built to be understated: a small Nevada family-law and PI firm with modest volume, conservative task-time estimates, and no attorney-hour valuation for tasks a paralegal or legal assistant realistically handles. The firm looks like this:
- 10 active family-law or PI matters opened per month
- Each new matter includes a client file dump averaging 80 documents (scanned records, photos, statements)
- 2 demand packages or disclosure compilations completed per month, each averaging 180 documents in the finished set
- 1 appellate appendix every 3 months (averaged to ~0.33/month)
The wage rates used here ($24.51/hr for legal assistant, $29.59/hr for paralegal, $28.85/hr for law clerk) come from BLS OEWS benchmarks for the Las Vegas metro area, explained in full in Part 1.
File intake triage
Open, read, name, and file each scanned document at matter intake
- Volume:
- 10 matters x 80 docs = 800 docs/month
- Estimated time per doc:
- 2.5 min (conservative; no OCR wait, straight triage)
- Total hours/month:
- 800 x 2.5 / 60 = 33 hours
- Role doing the work:
- Legal assistant (43-6012)
- Cost method:
- Direct labor cost offset (salary based)
Labor cost offset only (billable capacity is counted separately)
Exhibit & disclosure assembly
Assemble 2 demand packages or disclosure compilations per month, 180 docs each
- Volume:
- 2 packages/month, ~7 hrs each (conservative; larger packages take longer)
- Total hours/month:
- 14 hours
- Role doing the work:
- Paralegal (23-2011)
- Cost method:
- Either/or: direct labor cost saved (salary), OR billable capacity freed (billable rate). See note.
OR: 14 hrs x $150/hr (firm billable rate) = $2,100/month capacity gain (not both)
Redaction pass
Redaction first-pass scan on 2 records packages per month, ~400 pages each
- Volume:
- 2 x 400 pages = 800 pages/month, ~45 min per 400-page pass
- Total hours/month:
- 1.5 hours
- Role doing the work:
- Paralegal (23-2011)
- Cost method:
- Direct labor cost offset (conservative; DilloLex flags misses, so attorney review time is not eliminated, only the initial scan pass)
Attorney review step still required; not counted here
Appellate appendix assembly
1 appendix per quarter (0.33/month average): 250-page appendix, two indices, NRAP 30 conforming format
- Estimated time per appendix:
- 10 hours (conservative floor; larger records take more)
- Average hours/month:
- 0.33 x 10 = 3.3 hours
- Role doing the work:
- Law clerk (23-1012 proxy)
- Cost method:
- Either/or: direct labor cost saved (salary), OR time freed for substantive legal work (harder to value precisely; omitted from the conservative figure)
Conservative view: direct labor cost only; no billable-hour premium stacked on this
The conservative total
Adding Tasks A through D, all on the direct-labor-cost basis (no billable-rate premium, no double-counting):
| Task offset | Hours / month | Role | Cost / month (salary based) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: Intake triage | 33 | Legal assistant | $810 |
| B: Exhibit / disclosure assembly | 14 | Paralegal | $414 |
| C: Redaction first pass | 1.5 | Paralegal | $44 |
| D: Appendix assembly | 3.3 | Law clerk | $95 |
| Total (conservative, salary-basis only) | 51.8 hours / month | $1,363 / month ~$16,356 / year |
This is the floor; the real number runs higher. Three things keep this estimate conservative: (1) base salary rates are used, not loaded cost (no benefits or overhead multiplier); (2) hours are based on 10 new matters per month, which is a small volume for a firm doing active PI and family work; and (3) the exhibit-assembly valuation uses the staff salary cost rather than the billable rate. If you substitute the paralegal's billable rate of $150/hr on Task B instead, that one line alone becomes $2,100/month instead of $414, and the annual figure exceeds $36,500 when valued on that billable-rate basis. Whether the freed time converts to additional billable hours or simply reduces overtime and burnout is a question only your firm can answer.
How payback works against the hardware cost
The DGX Spark hardware runs around $3,999 to $4,700 depending on the seller, as priced by third-party sellers; confirm current pricing with the seller. The DilloLex software license is a one-time, quote-based fee that depends on your firm's volume and onboarding scope. We publish no fixed price because there is none, and inventing one would be dishonest. What we can show is the payback math in terms of offset staff-hours, so you can evaluate it against your actual quote.
| Scenario | Assumption | Hardware cost | Monthly offset (salary basis) |
Hardware-cost payback in months (salary basis only) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative (salary basis) | 10 matters/month, tasks A-D as described | $4,700 (high end) | $1,363 | ~3.5 months |
| Billable-capacity basis (Task B) | Same volume; Task B valued at $150/hr billable instead of salary | $4,700 | ~$3,049 | ~1.5 months |
| Smaller firm | 5 matters/month (half the volume); salary basis only | $4,700 | ~$681 | ~7 months |
These figures cover hardware only. The software license is separate and not included because it is not a published number. Evaluate total cost of ownership (hardware plus software quote) against your own volume and task-time estimates using the salary figures in Part 1. The payback period will be longer once the software license is in the denominator; the analysis is still checkable once you have a real quote in hand.
What DilloLex does not eliminate: the savings model above assumes the mechanical tasks are fully offset. In practice, the output still requires review. DilloLex proposes names, proposes redactions, proposes exhibit sets; your staff confirms each one. That review takes some time, which is not counted as an offset here. The hours recovered come from the building; the checking stays with your people.
Where the savings go
What happens to the recovered hours is a management question rather than an automation question. Three honest possibilities:
- Existing staff take on more matters without overtime. If a paralegal currently spends 14 hours a month on disclosure assembly, freeing that time either lets them handle more files at the same hours or lets them go home on time. Neither shows up as a direct revenue number, but both are real gains: one increases throughput, one reduces burnout and turnover risk.
- Fewer overtime hours paid. Late-night Bates stamping sessions are a real cost; if those go away, the hourly savings are immediate and easy to count.
- Attorney judgment replaces staff output volume. If an attorney is currently reviewing work that takes a paralegal 14 hours to produce, and that 14 hours drops to 3 hours of machine work plus review, the attorney's time on the matter drops too. That time freed is worth $250 per hour, but only if it converts to something billable or into a better work product that improves outcomes.
The conservative model counts only the direct labor saving. The strategic case for automation includes throughput and outcome effects, but those depend on your practice, and no one outside your firm can tell you what they will be.
Data sources
The wage figures in the scenario calculations above come from BLS OEWS, explained in full in Part 1 of this guide. The primary sources, accessed and cross-validated, are reproduced here for reference:
- Attorneys (SOC 23-1011), NV statewide, May 2023 OEWS: LAWCLERK.legal ("The State of the Nevada Legal Job Market," citing BLS OEWS May 2023, $163,760 LV mean / $159,840 NV mean); BLS OEWS May 2023 NV statewide page (https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes_nv.htm, page exists but access blocked during research).
- Law clerks (SOC 23-1012), NV statewide, May 2024 survey: O*NET OnLine, Nevada wages, SOC 23-1012.00 (https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/23-1012.00?st=NV, "BLS 2025 wage data," updated 2025); Zippia Nevada statewide average $65,015 (2026, weighted BLS+FLC+OPM blend, used as corroboration). Las Vegas metro suppressed for this occupation (small workforce count); NV statewide used per benchmark rule.
- Paralegals (SOC 23-2011), LV metro, May 2024 OEWS: paralegaledu.org ("2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics salary figures," LV mean $61,550, median $62,390; https://www.paralegaledu.org/nevada/nevada-salary/); SalaryNode, BLS OEWS 2024, LV mean $61,550 (https://salarynode.com/salary/paralegals-and-legal-assistants/las-vegas-henderson-north-las-vegas-nv).
- Legal assistants / legal secretaries (SOC 43-6012), LV metro, May 2025 survey: O*NET OnLine, Nevada wages, SOC 43-6012.00 (https://www.onetonline.org/link/localwages/43-6012.00?st=NV, "BLS 2025 wage data," updated May 19, 2026); LV metro median $50,980 reported. Indeed Las Vegas legal secretary salaries (22 postings, updated May 29, 2026, $23.04/hr average) used as corroboration only; BLS O*NET figure is primary.
Talk about what the numbers look like for your firm
A note on methodology and limits
This analysis is illustrative, not a guarantee of savings. The hour estimates are judgment-based, not drawn from a time study of any specific firm; substituting your own time-per-task figures will produce a more accurate result for your practice. The BLS wage figures are the most defensible conservative public-sector source for the Las Vegas market, but they do not represent total employment cost: no benefits, payroll taxes, or overhead multiplier is included, so the real cost to offset is higher than shown, further understating the savings. The law clerk mapping to SOC 23-1012 is an imperfect proxy because BLS has no code for law-firm law clerks; this is disclosed in Part 1. Payback period figures cover hardware cost only and exclude the software license, which is quote-based. No projection in this guide constitutes a warranty of any financial result. The supervising attorney and firm management are responsible for evaluating DilloLex against their own volume, staffing, and financial picture.