Paralegal Resume

About This Resume

Paralegals spend their days checking filings and discovery responses that go out under an attorney's name, so their own resume gets read with the same eye. Attorneys tend to treat a paralegal resume as though it were a filing, checking every date and name. A vague line or a slip costs more here than in most fields. This page shows how to make the document as careful as the work it describes.

Paralegal responsibilities include drafting routine pleadings and letters, organizing discovery and keeping the case calendar. To get an interview at a litigation firm, you should show hands-on experience with court e-filing and a flair for catching the deadline everyone else missed. Hiring attorneys look first for your practice area, since a real estate paralegal and a litigation paralegal spend their days on very different work. Software comes next. So do credentials, such as a certificate from an ABA-approved program or a national certification like NALA's Certified Paralegal (CP).

What to Include

• Practice areas and case types in your headline or summary, such as employment litigation or residential real estate
• Court filing experience, naming the state and federal e-filing systems you have used (federal courts use CM/ECF)
• Discovery and trial support: document review, privilege logs, deposition summaries, exhibit lists and trial binders
• Legal software for case management, research and document review, such as Clio, Westlaw or Relativity
• Your paralegal certificate (note if the program is ABA-approved) and any national certification, such as NALA's CP or NFPA's RP
• Caseload: how many attorneys and open matters you supported
• A notary commission or a second language, if you have one

Paralegal Resume Sample

Tips for Your Paralegal Resume

• Show the work with its volume. Instead of "Assisted attorneys with discovery," write "Drafted responses to 40 sets of interrogatories and built privilege logs for 3 employment cases."
• Describe cases by type and size, and leave client names out. A firm that sees you guard other clients' details will expect you to guard theirs the same way.
• Pick verbs that match what paralegals do: drafted, prepared, filed, summarized, organized. Stay away from "advised clients" or "represented," which describe work that belongs to attorneys.
• A typo can spoil an otherwise careful paralegal resume, which is a hard way to lose a job built on accuracy, since a slow second read could have prevented it. Better yet, after you finish and before you send it, have someone you trust check every date and name as well.
• If you are new to the field, put your certificate program above your work history and list its practical pieces, such as an internship, a mock case file or a research memo. Earlier office or customer service jobs still count, because deadlines and confidential records were part of them too.
• Mention the calendar. Attorneys worry about missed deadlines more than almost anything else (for good reason), so a bullet showing you kept the docket for a team carries real weight.
• Rename your headline for each application. A resume headed "Litigation Paralegal" will get a closer read at a litigation firm than one headed "Legal Professional."