Top 12 Lawyer Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a standout resume matters for aspiring lawyers. You’re signaling judgment, rigor, and the ability to move cases forward. Blend sharp research, crisp writing, litigation know‑how, tech fluency, and people skills. That mix gets noticed.

Lawyer Skills

1. LexisNexis
2. Westlaw
3. Negotiation
4. Litigation
5. Research
6. Drafting
7. Analysis
8. Advocacy
9. Clio
10. Timekeeping
11. Communication
12. CaseMap

1. LexisNexis

LexisNexis is a comprehensive legal research platform offering deep libraries of case law, statutes, secondary sources, news, and practice guidance for legal professionals.

Why It's Important

It streamlines research and keeps you current on legal developments, so you can build stronger arguments faster and spot risks before they bite.

How to Improve LexisNexis Skills

Level up by doing the following:

1. Regular training: Take short refreshers to master connectors, filters, and Shepardizing/KeyCiting equivalents.
2. Customize alerts: Track new decisions, statutes, and news in your jurisdictions and practice areas.
3. Use practice guidance: Tap practical notes, forms, and checklists tailored to your specialty.
4. Try Lexis+: Lean on advanced features and AI‑assisted tools for quicker on‑point authorities.
5. Go mobile: Use the app and digital library for quick lookups and saved searches on the go.
6. Lean on support: Ask research attorneys and support for search strategy tune‑ups.

Build habits around saved searches, alerts, and filters, and your research time shrinks while quality climbs.

How to Display LexisNexis Skills on Your Resume

2. Westlaw

Westlaw is an online legal research suite with cases, statutes, regulations, treatises, and analytical tools. Newer offerings such as Westlaw Precision augment traditional Westlaw and Westlaw Edge features.

Why It's Important

It delivers up‑to‑date law and powerful validation tools, helping you check authority, predict risk, and craft arguments with confidence.

How to Improve Westlaw Skills

Make your searches do more work:

1. Advanced queries: Terms and connectors, field restrictions, and filters; save templates you reuse.
2. Preferences: Set default jurisdictions, delivery formats, and content types to cut clutter.
3. Practice area pages: Start from curated pages for faster, on‑point sources.
4. Analytics: Use KeyCite (including Overruling Risk) and, where available, Precision Research and litigation analytics.
5. Training: Short webinars and product updates pay off quickly.
6. Integrations: Connect with your drafting and matter tools so research flows into work product.

Dial in your filters and favorites once; your future self will thank you every single deadline day.

How to Display Westlaw Skills on Your Resume

3. Negotiation

Negotiation is the deliberate exchange that moves parties from conflict to agreement, balancing interests, leverage, and timing.

Why It's Important

It resolves disputes faster, preserves relationships when possible, and often secures outcomes litigation can’t guarantee.

How to Improve Negotiation Skills

Sharpen the essentials:

1. Preparation: Know the law, the facts, the players, and the pressure points.
2. Active listening: Hear what’s said and what’s missing; questions unlock interests.
3. Emotional intelligence: Manage tone, read the room, keep momentum when things heat up.
4. Clarity: Speak plainly; anchor proposals with rationale, not jargon.
5. Rapport: Small trust deposits make big moves possible.
6. Creativity: Trade across issues; reframe problems to find mutual gains.
7. Know your BATNA: Define walk‑away lines before you step in.

Reps matter. Post‑mortems after each deal matter even more.

How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

4. Litigation

Litigation is the courtroom and case process—pleadings, motions, discovery, trial, and sometimes appeal—where lawyers enforce or defend rights.

Why It's Important

It’s how legal rights get tested, protected, and, when needed, vindicated in a public forum.

How to Improve Litigation Skills

Level up your courtroom and casecraft:

1. Continuing education: Keep up with procedural shifts and new precedent.
2. Practice and feedback: Mock hearings, trial advocacy workshops, and trusted critiques.
3. Mentorship: Work with seasoned litigators; watch their motion practice and cross‑exams.
4. Research fluency: Command LexisNexis and Westlaw to back every proposition.
5. Writing: Tight briefs win; study great motions and edit mercilessly.
6. Speaking: Build presence; practice oral argument under time pressure.
7. Time management: Track deadlines, segment tasks, and manage discovery without drowning.
8. Client communication: Set expectations, explain risk, no surprises.

Great litigators aren’t loud; they’re prepared.

How to Display Litigation Skills on Your Resume

5. Research

Legal research means finding, reading, and weighing authorities—cases, statutes, regulations, secondary sources—and fitting them to your facts.

Why It's Important

Good research underpins sound advice, persuasive briefs, and risk‑smart decisions. Miss the law, miss the mark.

How to Improve Research Skills

Make your process quicker and cleaner:

1. Define the question: Scope the issue tightly before you search.
2. Use reliable sources: Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Google Scholar cover most needs.
3. Advanced search: Boolean operators, field limits, jurisdiction filters—use them.
4. Stay current: Skim recent decisions and key journals or newsletters in your field (SSRN, JSTOR, bar updates).
5. Critically assess: Jurisdiction, precedential weight, treatment history—no shortcuts.
6. Ask around: When stuck, confer with colleagues or research attorneys.
7. Organize: Keep notes, quotes, and citations tidy with a repeatable system (Evernote, OneNote, or a memo template).
8. Keep training: Short workshops and vendor tutorials save hours later.

Consistency beats bursts. Build a checklist and use it every time.

How to Display Research Skills on Your Resume

6. Drafting

Drafting is the art and discipline of crafting legal documents—contracts, pleadings, policies—with language that’s clear, accurate, and enforceable.

Why It's Important

Words bind people and businesses. Precision prevents disputes; sloppy clauses invite them.

How to Improve Drafting Skills

Sharpen the page:

1. Audience first: Write for the reader—client, court, counterparty—and meet them where they are.
2. Daily practice: Short, frequent reps; rewrite clauses, remove fluff.
3. Read models: Study well‑drafted templates and exemplary briefs in your field.
4. Seek feedback: Ask experienced editors to mark up your work.
5. Workshops: Take focused legal writing courses; the payoff is immediate.
6. Use drafting tools: Document automation, clause libraries, and practice management software can reduce errors.
7. Edit hard: Favor plain English. Cut redundancies. Define terms once.
8. Track changes in law: Update boilerplates when statutes or cases shift the ground.

Clarity is kind. To your reader and to your client.

How to Display Drafting Skills on Your Resume

7. Analysis

Analysis means breaking complex facts and law into usable parts, weighing options, and building a coherent strategy that survives scrutiny.

Why It's Important

It’s the difference between information and insight. Clients hire judgment, not just citations.

How to Improve Analysis Skills

Train the muscle:

1. Critical thinking drills: Work hypotheticals; test assumptions; argue the other side.
2. Research depth: Know where to find controlling law fast; read beyond headnotes.
3. Write to think: Short issue memos force clarity; outlines expose gaps.
4. Peer review: Invite pushback; refine until your logic holds under fire.
5. CLE focus: Choose courses that emphasize problem‑solving and strategy.
6. Follow rigorous analysis: Court opinions, respected journals, and top legal blogs show structure and nuance.
7. Practice under constraints: Time‑boxed analyses mimic real‑world pressure.

Great analysis looks simple only after the hard work.

How to Display Analysis Skills on Your Resume

8. Advocacy

Advocacy is representing a client’s position—written and oral—so decision‑makers understand, trust, and act on it.

Why It's Important

Cases turn on persuasion. Facts and law matter; delivery and framing push them across the line.

How to Improve Advocacy Skills

Polish the craft:

1. Communication skills: Practice clear, concise speaking; record yourself; iterate.
2. Know your audience: Tailor tone and structure to the judge, jury, or regulator in front of you.
3. Legal writing: Study plain‑English techniques and the work of top legal stylists.
4. Keep learning: Track developments in your practice and revisit fundamentals.
5. Seek feedback: Moots, mock trials, and mentor reviews expose blind spots.
6. Network: Trade strategies with peers; observe hearings; borrow what works.
7. Manage stress: Build routines for focus—breathing, mindfulness, preparation rituals.

Confidence comes from preparation. Presence comes from practice.

How to Display Advocacy Skills on Your Resume

9. Clio

Clio is cloud‑based practice management software for case management, billing, time tracking, intake, and client communications.

Why It's Important

It centralizes your matters, reduces administrative drag, and tightens billing and client service. Less juggling, more lawyering.

How to Improve Clio Skills

Get more from the platform:

1. Integrations: Connect e‑signature, document storage, email, and calendar tools to streamline the workflow.
2. Practice‑area customization: Use custom fields, templates, and automation tuned to your matters.
3. Mobile mastery: Track time, review tasks, and message clients from the app.
4. Client communication: Use secure portals, templates, and scheduled updates to reduce back‑and‑forth.
5. Reporting: Monitor realization, collections, and matter metrics; adjust staffing and pricing accordingly.
6. Security: Enable two‑factor authentication and review permissions regularly.
7. Training: Short team trainings and office hours cement good habits.

Adopt a “enter once, use everywhere” mindset and watch errors and rework drop.

How to Display Clio Skills on Your Resume

10. Timekeeping

Timekeeping is the disciplined recording of effort spent on research, drafting, calls, court, and everything in between, usually tied to matters and tasks.

Why It's Important

Accurate time entries drive fair billing, compliance, and capacity planning. Clients notice when it’s clean.

How to Improve Timekeeping Skills

Tighten the loop:

1. Use legal‑specific trackers: Tools like Clio, TimeSolv, or MyCase make capture fast and consistent.
2. Log in real time: Enter as you go or on a fixed cadence each hour—memory is a leaky bucket.
3. Go mobile: Capture court, travel, and calls from your phone.
4. Team training: Standardize narratives, task codes, and review routines.
5. Review patterns: Spot underbilling, scope creep, or inefficiencies and adjust.

Good time data improves pricing, staffing, and, ultimately, outcomes.

How to Display Timekeeping Skills on Your Resume

11. Communication

Communication is the exchange of information and persuasion—written and spoken—across clients, courts, colleagues, and counterparties.

Why It's Important

It’s how you win hearings, reach deals, and keep clients informed. Clarity earns trust.

How to Improve Communication Skills

Small tweaks, big gains:

1. Be direct: Simple words, short sentences, logical order.
2. Active listening: Don’t reload—listen, reflect, then respond.
3. Mind the nonverbal: Posture, eye contact, pacing—your delivery speaks, too.
4. Adapt: Tailor depth and tone to the audience’s knowledge and needs.
5. Seek feedback: Ask for notes; iterate relentlessly.

Write it, say it, tighten it. Repeat.

How to Display Communication Skills on Your Resume

12. CaseMap

CaseMap (including CaseMap Cloud) helps lawyers organize facts, issues, people, and evidence, linking sources to arguments and timelines.

Why It's Important

It clarifies what matters, surfaces gaps, and keeps teams aligned as cases evolve.

How to Improve CaseMap Skills

Make the tool sing:

1. Data consistency: Clean naming, standardized fields, and disciplined entry rules.
2. Frequent updates: Add facts and cites as they emerge—don’t let it stale.
3. Fact management: Tie each fact to sources, issues, and witnesses for instant traceability.
4. Training: Short sessions to master views, filters, reporting, and exports.
5. Leverage integrations: Connect to your research tools for seamless cite and document linkage.
6. Collaborate: Use shared views and comments to keep everyone on the same page.
7. Customize: Tailor fields, tags, and reports to your litigation style and court requirements.

Treat CaseMap as your living case brain, not a one‑off spreadsheet.

How to Display CaseMap Skills on Your Resume