What paralegal donors give in federal races

Forty-eight thousand lines, small mean check

$5,214,690 is the occupation-level dollar total. 48,151 is the itemization count. 1,257 is the donor-record count. Mean contribution size is about $108. Mean dollars per donor record are about $4,149. Repeat giving is about 38 itemizations per donor record.

48,151 lines from 1,257 records is a high-repeat pattern: a mid-size support pool generating many schedules. The per-line mean of about $108 is among the smaller means in this harvest band, so the contribution count is the number that explains how $5.2M accumulated.

These means are not typical-check estimates. The packet has no firm-versus-corporate split, no gift-size distribution, and no bar-admission field. A few large lines can still sit inside a low average.

Paralegal is not attorney and not legal assistant

ATTORNEY, LAWYER, and LEGAL ASSISTANT — if those strings exist as separate keys — are not rolled into this total unless the bulk extract normalized them to PARALEGAL. This page cites only $5,214,690, 48,151 contributions, and 1,257 donors.

The FEC does not verify a paralegal certificate, a law-firm employment file, or a notary commission. Litigation paralegals, corporate paralegals, and people who typed the word as a catch-all legal-support title can all appear. Occupation is the donor’s word on that Schedule A line, published as reported on FEC.gov.

Why the line count outruns the donor count

About 38 itemizations per donor record is a high repeat rate among occupation keys near $5.2M. Recurring small gifts, payroll deductions, and multi-committee giving can all raise the line count. The packet does not split those mechanisms. Quote 48,151 contributions with the dollars so readers see the shape of the bucket.

1,257 donor records is not a unique-person estimate after name matching. Address variants can inflate the donor count. Occupation is stored per transaction: PARALEGAL on some gifts and LEGAL ASSISTANT on others splits activity across keys.

Occupation versus industry for legal support

Industry pages group employers. A paralegal at a law firm and one in a corporate legal department share this occupation string if they typed PARALEGAL. Adding $5,214,690 to a legal-services industry total double-counts overlapping itemizations.

Open the PARALEGAL occupation page for rows. Use the occupations index to see neighboring legal titles as separate keys. Independent expenditures are not contributions and are not inside $5,214,690.

Limits, source, and citation

Occupation is free text. Extra words (senior paralegal, litigation paralegal) create parallel buckets when they do not normalize to PARALEGAL. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code. Source: FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault from FEC.gov bulk data.

A citation that stays inside the packet is: occupation equals PARALEGAL, dollars equal $5,214,690, contributions equal 48,151, donors equal 1,257. Compact millions ($5.2M) are the same headline amount rounded to one decimal place. Candidate and committee pages hold the recipient side. LobbyVault does not infer motive from the occupation column.

PARALEGAL as high-volume legal-support text

PARALEGAL in this extract is $5,214,690 on 48,151 itemizations from 1,257 donor records, or $5.2M in compact millions. Those dollars are itemized activity on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules indexed on LobbyVault from FEC.gov bulk data. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so they never enter the total. Refunds and memo entries follow FEC presentation in the underlying schedules; this guide does not invent a fourth occupation-level fact.

Arithmetic means on this key are about $108 per contribution and about $4,149 per donor record, with roughly 38 itemizations per donor record. Means are not medians. ATTORNEY and LEGAL ASSISTANT remain other occupation pages unless the extract normalized them to PARALEGAL. Combining those keys without naming each source total changes the unit from one FEC string to a homemade cluster.

Industry pages group employer-side categories and should not be added to $5,214,690. A public-record citation that stays inside the packet is: occupation equals PARALEGAL, dollars equal $5,214,690, contributions equal 48,151, donors equal 1,257. Candidate and committee pages hold the recipient side. LobbyVault does not infer motive from the occupation column.

Researchers who need cycle cuts, employer text, or recipient lists should leave this guide and open the live occupation hub. This file restates harvested packet facts only. Keep the contribution count and the donor-record count in any sentence that quotes the dollars, so readers can see how 48,151 lines produced $5.2M. Exact-string matching is the method. Anything else is a different query.

Questions

How much have paralegal donors given in FEC records?

Itemizations that list PARALEGAL sum to $5,214,690, or $5.2M, across 48,151 contributions and 1,257 donor records in the LobbyVault index of FEC bulk data. The figure is an occupation-string total, not a count of working paralegals. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Are attorneys included in the paralegal total?

No. ATTORNEY is a separate occupation string. This page covers PARALEGAL only: $5,214,690, 48,151 contributions, and 1,257 donors. Mixing them would invent a combined legal total the packet does not contain. Occupation is donor-typed on Form 3 and Form 3X. LobbyVault indexes exact strings from FEC.gov bulk data.

Why are there so many paralegal contributions?

48,151 itemizations from 1,257 donors implies about 38 contributions per donor record. Repeat itemizing raises the line count. Mean line size is about $108. The packet does not split causes. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Does listing PARALEGAL prove a certificate or firm job?

No. Occupation is self-reported free text. The FEC record does not verify employment or a paralegal credential. Quote 48,151 contributions and 1,257 donor records with the dollars. Source: FEC.gov Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.