Legal Assistant Resume Example

A Legal Assistant resume template that will land more interviews and job offers. Or, have your resume written for you for free by Leet Resumes.

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Written by Marc Cenedella
Leading expert on resumes
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Marc Cenedella

Marc Cenedella is a nationally recognized thought leader on careers, resume writing, job search, career management and recruiting, Marc is frequently sought out by national media organizations for his expert commentary on employment, resumes, the job search and the job market.

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Last updated on May 23, 2022
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How to Write a Great Legal Assistant Resume

In an industry that may as well be the professional equivalent of “paperwork,” you keep everything organized and ready to retrieve at a moment’s notice.

From agreements to schedules, to supporting documents and beyond, you somehow manage to create order from chaos while being the welcoming face and voice to clients, clerks, and opposing counsel.

While the title of “Legal Assistant” doesn’t attest to the significance of your role in the office, everyone knows that your drafts, proofreading, and organizational skills have saved a case or two (or many more).

With such great attention to detail, it seems that writing a resume would be a breeze. But how exactly do you quantify “doing anything and everything in the legal office” for a resume?

Luckily, you’ve come to the right place.

Here, you’ll find a resume template to make sure your format is to spec.

For additional reference (because it takes two sources to verify a fact), we’ve included a Legal Assistant resume example too.

Follow this step-by-step guide for writing the perfect Legal Assistant resume, and you’ll be back to saving lawyers’ cases in no time.

Prefer to have someone else write your Legal Assistant resume?

Bypass the extra paperwork and have Leet Resumes write your resume for you. Also, it’s completely free. (Though tips are always appreciated.)

How to Format a Legal Assistant Resume

You know better than anyone that the format of the information can mean just as much as the information itself.

This resume template will serve as your procedural guide to the writing process. Here are the five essential parts:

  • Professional Headline
  • Summary
  • Work Experience
  • Education
  • Keywords

We’ll cover each section in detail with resume examples along the way.

Should this start to feel more like discovery ROGs than a fun way to apply your clerical skills, have Leet Resumes write your resume for free.

Name + Contact

At the very top of the page, include your first and last name in a clear, professional font. Make it slightly larger than the rest of the text.

Directly underneath, add your phone number, email address and location. Your mailing address is optional, but a minimum of your city and state should be included.

Since you’re the first call for office tasks and document retrieval, they like to know you’re nearby. Giving this information proactively addresses any possible doubt that might set your resume aside.

Just like a case caption, this section should be clean and simple with only the necessary facts. So leave your LinkedIn and other socials out.

Professional Headline

Like the headline of an advertisement, your professional headline should grab the reader’s attention and make them want to learn more about who you are.

Your reader will vary depending on the size of the firm.

If you’re applying to a smaller firm, it’s likely that one of the lawyers is reading your resume themselves. At a larger firm, this could be another paralegal, or an outside recruiter.

To capture their attention, you want to start with a flattering adjective that puts you and your work in a positive light.

After this, add a word regarding your experience or expertise in a certain field of law (if it’s relevant to the job you’re applying for).

Finally, close with your official title: Legal Assistant.

This might read: Diligent Executive Legal Assistant.

Or: Detail-Oriented Corporate Law Legal Assistant.

Whatever rings true, positive and professionally-appealing, put it on the record.

Professional Summary

You’ve piqued their interest with your flattering headline, now the professional summary gives a little more background with continued brevity.

In the first line, list the job titles you’d accept for your next Legal Assistant position.

Next, list the skills and competencies you possess that qualify you for these roles. Things like excellent communication, billing, organization, legal research, contractual agreements, or transcription might fit here.

Since your role involves too many skills to list, use the posted job description as a guide to understand the skills your potential employer is looking for. Add the most important and relevant skills here and save the rest for the keywords section later.

These first two lines of your professional summary are plenty to land you an interview. If you have the supplemental information for the next two lines, it’s just a bonus.

In line three, list your achievements as a Legal Assistant. This might include assisting significant cases or firms, or designing efficient admin systems in the office that extend beyond your regular duties.

In line four, you can list your career highlights by way of promotions, awards or successes.

Again, these last two lines are completely optional. If you can’t think of anything that easily fits, move on to the next section. That’s where the real determination is made.

Work Experience

Your work experience is the place to state your case that you are the best Legal Assistant for the open position.

In this section you’ll paint the story of your Legal Assistant career with supplemental evidence that supports this claim: You have a proven track record of success that can be replicated for the organization you’re applying to.

First, start by listing your previous job positions in reverse chronological order. Refer to the resume example above to see how this is formatted.

Next, add bullet points of supporting evidence. The best way to support your claim and land you a coveted interview is to include these three components in your supporting bullet points:

Strong Success Verbs

These are the kinds of verbs that imply success. This means taking the mundane tasks of your Legal Assistant work and showing how valuable you are to the office.

Instead of “managed billings and accounts receivable,” you “Boosted receivables” and “optimized billing.”

Other success verbs to consider in your work might include: reduced, maximized, converted, or capitalized.

Start each bullet point of your work experience section with one of these strong success verbs to highlight your value in the firm.

Numbers

Your results are all hearsay until you put down some hard numbers that can be verified.

Numbers are the best way for your future employer to visualize your impact in the office. They’re specific and factual – two things that make a great case.

If you’re stumped on which numbers to include, look at the many tasks you perform each day.

By how much have you reduced the response time to clients? How many lawyers have you assisted at once? How many client interviews did you conduct? By how much did receivables increase with the billing software you introduced?

When you think you’ve included enough supporting numbers, go back and double the amount of numbers. Each number adds another reason why you should be called for an interview.

Promotions

Promotions add a character witness to the claim that you’re the best Legal Assistant for the job.

When your work is done so well that it’s noticed and rewarded, that verifies your claim even more. A future employer will see that other people like your work and probably like working with you, too.

As someone who will hold a lot of responsibility and information that’s confidential in nature, promotions are a vote of confidence that you’re a worthy candidate for the position.

Once you’ve completed this thorough work experience, the rest of this resume template will be a breeze.

Education

Here you’ll list where you attended school, your dates of attendance, and the degrees you received. Any awards or honors are also worth mentioning.

If you’re currently pursuing a degree (especially in the field of law), list it here with the designation of being in progress.

However, any other incomplete degrees that aren’t being pursued can be left off completely.

Keywords and Skills for a Legal Assistant Resume

In the final section of this resume template, you’ll include a list of keywords and skills that make you the best candidate to call back for an interview.

Start with keywords of the daily duties you perform in the office: legal documents, drafting, customer service/client relations, proofreading, transcription, contract management, or research.

Then add the soft skills, or the personality traits, that make you an enjoyable coworker in the office, and a friendly and professional contact for clients: communication skills, empathy, detail-oriented, reliable, listening skills, or multilingual.

If you have any legal-specific certifications or relevant courses, include them here as well.

Finally, add the technologies you’re proficient in that help you complete your work: MS Office, scheduling software, Outlook, CRM, electronic filing, videoconferencing, billing software, or data management software.

Once you’ve listed the most relevant and impressive skills, your resume is complete!

Can someone write my resume for me?

Absolutely. Leet Resumes are the experts behind the resume example above. For no cost at all, they’ll apply their expertise to your resume. Try it out for yourself. (Tips are always appreciated.)

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