Clerical, Professional & Sales
Class Code 8820: Attorney—All Employees & Clerical, Messengers, Drivers — Workers' Comp Insurance
Covers law firms and legal departments, including the attorneys themselves along with clerical staff, paralegals, messengers, and drivers who support the practice. It's a broad classification meant to capture an entire office-based legal operation under one code.
- Risk level:
- low
What code 8820 covers
Class 8820 is the standard classification for law firms and in-house legal departments, covering attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, clerical staff, and support employees such as messengers and drivers who work for the firm. Unlike some professional-services codes that split desk work from other duties, 8820 is written broadly enough to include the office's messenger and driving functions without requiring a separate code, reflecting the low physical-hazard nature of legal practice. The classification applies regardless of practice area — corporate, litigation, family law, and so on all fall under the same code, since the exposure is driven by the office setting rather than the type of law practiced. It does not extend to a client's operations; a law firm's own staff carry 8820, but that doesn't change how the firm's clients are classified for their own policies.
Included operations
- Attorneys, paralegals, and legal assistants
- Clerical, reception, and administrative staff
- Messengers and process servers
- Firm-employed drivers
- General office operations of a law practice
Assigned elsewhere
- Title insurance agency operations run as a separate business line — evaluated under the applicable insurance class
- Traveling accountants or systematizers retained by the firm — see code 8803
- Outside process-serving contractors who are not firm employees
- Court reporting services operated as a distinct business
Businesses that typically carry 8820
- Solo and small law practices
- Mid-size and large law firms
- Corporate in-house legal departments
- Government legal offices
- Title and escrow-adjacent legal practices
- Nonprofit and association back offices
- Accounting and bookkeeping firms
- Technology and software company offices
Common misclassifications
Code 8810
Some firms default to standard clerical coding for support staff instead of using the all-inclusive attorney classification that already covers those roles.
Code 8803
A firm's own traveling accountant or bookkeeper is sometimes left under the attorney code instead of the more specific traveling accountant class.
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What drives the cost of code 8820
- Total annual payroll for employees assigned to this classification
- Experience modification factor based on claims history
- State-specific base rates and loss costs filed for this class code
- Claims frequency and severity trends for the business
- Safety programs, training, and workplace controls in place
- Payroll mix across multiple classifications at the same location
What underwriters look for
- Percentage of time employees spend on outside sales, deliveries, or non-desk duties
- Whether any employees perform duties that belong under a different, higher-hazard class code
- Total clerical payroll versus payroll in other classifications at the same location
- Prior claims history and current experience modification factor
State differences
This entry uses standard NCCI class code phraseology, which applies in most NCCI-governed states. Pennsylvania (PCRB), Delaware (DCRB), California (WCIRB), New Jersey (NJCRIB), Michigan, New York (NYCIRB), and Massachusetts maintain their own classification manuals, and code numbers or phraseology can differ there. Our agency confirms the correct classification for your state before quoting.
Quote class code 8820.
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Class code 8820 questions
Does 8820 cover paralegals and legal assistants?
Yes, support staff working for the firm are part of the same classification as the attorneys.
What about a firm's courier or process server?
If they're employees of the firm, messenger and driving duties are included under 8820 rather than needing a separate code.
Does the type of law practiced change the code?
No, 8820 applies broadly across practice areas since the exposure is tied to office-based legal work.
Is a law firm's own workers' comp code the same as what its clients use?
No — 8820 only describes the law firm's own employees. Each client business is classified separately based on its own operations.
Last reviewed · Reviewed by Provident Financial Group licensed agents