Any paralegals, specifically in New York?

I got my paralegal degree back in 1994, but never used it. I interviewed with several law firms, but found that in most cases that most paralegals make the same salary as a secretary did back then.

Basically, you do a lot of the legal research for the lawyer, or the pleadings and may talk to the clients on the lawyer's behalf, but you can NOT give legal advice, nor sign any papers, since that has to be signed by a lawyer. One of the criteria is that you MUST bill out 40 hours per week, since many firms will have a hourly rate of $65 for paralegal work vs the lawyer may bill out $300 per hour.as an example. Granted they maybe paying you $15 per hour or more.

I live in IN and my guess in NY the salary would be much higher there vs in my state. Back then I remember that they were paying about $25,000, so could have changed a lot since then.

I ended up going into insurance as a claims adjuster, and when I retired about 5 years ago, was making $50,000 a year. I probably could have made more, if I had been in the litigation claims of the insurance companies, since they were making if I remember $65,000 to $75,000 per year.