Top 12 Legal Assistant Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the crowded arena of legal support, the right mix of skills on your resume can tilt the scales. Show depth, show speed, show judgment. Below, you’ll find the 12 core skills that matter for legal assistants today—refined, relevant, and ready to help your application rise above the noise.

Legal Assistant Skills

1. LexisNexis
2. Westlaw
3. CaseMap
4. Time Matters
5. PACER
6. E-Filing
7. Document Drafting
8. Proofreading
9. Transcription
10. Scheduling
11. Billing
12. Microsoft Office

1. LexisNexis

LexisNexis (including the Lexis+ platform) delivers a deep library of primary law, secondary sources, practical guidance, news, and analytics. Legal assistants lean on it for fast, precise research and for Shepard’s signals to validate authority before anything leaves the building.

Why It's Important

It tightens research, speeds drafting, and helps prevent missteps with bad law. When deadlines close in, comprehensive search and reliable citator checks keep the work clean.

How to Improve LexisNexis Skills

Build sharper instincts and a faster workflow:

1. Train with intent: Take vendor trainings and short tutorials; practice immediately after to lock in muscle memory.

2. Search with precision: Use connectors, segment searches, filters, and post-search tools to narrow quickly.

3. Shepardize everything: Check treatment, headnotes, and citing references; note negative signals before you draft.

4. Save time: Create alerts, saved searches, and folders so updates arrive without hunting.

5. Swap tips: Share search strategies with teammates; build a short internal playbook for recurring issues.

Do this consistently and your research becomes crisp, repeatable, and defensible.

How to Display LexisNexis Skills on Your Resume

2. Westlaw

Westlaw (including Westlaw Precision where available) offers robust legal research with KeyCite, practical guidance, and analytics that surface what matters, fast.

Why It's Important

Accurate research underpins solid filings. Westlaw’s citator and advanced filters reduce risk and cut time spent sifting through marginal sources.

How to Improve Westlaw Skills

Turn the dials and make the platform work harder for you:

1. Search smarter: Combine Boolean and natural-language searches; deploy quotations, proximity connectors, and field restrictors.

2. Live in KeyCite: Read flags, history, and Depth of Treatment; mine citing references to find better authorities.

3. Use the right workspace: If you have Westlaw Precision, lean on Precision Search, Litigation Analytics, and Statutes Compare to shortcut heavy lifts.

4. Organize: Save to folders, annotate, and set alerts on key topics and cases.

5. Keep learning: Explore built-in tips, help panes, and short trainings whenever new features roll out.

The payoff: tighter memos, stronger citations, fewer rewrites.

How to Display Westlaw Skills on Your Resume

3. CaseMap

CaseMap helps teams capture facts, link them to proof, map issues and people, and surface patterns. Think timelines, cast lists, and reports that make a case coherent.

Why It's Important

Clear structure turns piles of records into strategy. When facts, sources, issues, and dates interlock, the team moves faster and misses less.

How to Improve CaseMap Skills

Make the database your single source of truth:

1. Centralize: Import documents, facts, witnesses, and issues; stop scattering data across spreadsheets.

2. Link everything: Tie each fact to its evidence; tag by issue, witness, and date for quick retrieval.

3. Use timelines and reports: Build visual chronologies and concise summaries for attorney review and client updates.

4. Standardize: Create templates for recurring matter types; set naming and tagging conventions.

5. Maintain: Audit entries weekly; close loops on missing citations or unclear facts.

6. Level up: If available, explore CaseMap Cloud features for collaboration.

Good inputs create trustworthy case maps—and better calls on what to do next.

How to Display CaseMap Skills on Your Resume

4. Time Matters

Time Matters is practice and case management software. Matters, contacts, calendars, documents, email—pulled into one organized place so deadlines don’t slip and details don’t evaporate.

Why It's Important

It keeps the firm’s moving parts in sync. Centralized information and automated reminders translate to smoother client service and fewer fire drills.

How to Improve Time Matters Skills

Shape the system around your workflow, not the other way around:

1. Customize: Adjust matter forms, fields, and templates to capture what your team truly needs.

2. Integrate: Connect with Outlook and Word for frictionless calendaring and document generation.

3. Automate: Build workflows and triggers for intake, document assembly, and status updates.

4. Control the calendar: Use rules-based deadlines where supported; stack reminders at smart intervals.

5. Standard documents: Create merge templates to speed letters, pleadings, and engagement packets.

6. Maintain and secure: Update routinely, back up data, and review permissions for confidentiality.

7. Stay mobile: Enable secure mobile access for on-the-go checks and quick entries.

The result is less clicking, more doing, and clean audit trails.

How to Display TimeMatters Skills on Your Resume

5. PACER

PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) provides electronic access to federal dockets and filings from appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts.

Why It's Important

It’s the live wire to federal case activity—dockets, documents, deadlines, and updates—so attorneys stay current and filings land on time.

How to Improve PACER Skills

Work faster and spend less:

1. Search with intent: Use PACER Case Locator filters (party, court, date, NOS) and save common queries.

2. Track updates: Set alerts where available and monitor docket activity without constant manual checking.

3. Control costs: Apply client codes, download once, store centrally, and pull free opinions when possible.

4. Know the terrain: Jump between PACER and individual CM/ECF court sites smoothly; bookmark the courts you hit weekly.

5. Stay aware: Note maintenance windows and system notices to avoid filing scrambles.

Mastery here pays off in clean dockets and fewer bill shocks.

How to Display Pacer Skills on Your Resume

6. E-Filing

E-filing is the electronic submission of legal documents to courts and agencies—faster, traceable, and often mandatory.

Why It's Important

It shrinks turnaround time, preserves a clear record, and supports orderly, paper-light files. Courts expect accuracy; clients expect speed.

How to Improve E-Filing Skills

Tighten your process so filings sail through:

1. Know the rules: Local rules, standing orders, and technical specs vary by court. Keep a checklist per venue.

2. Prep your PDFs: Make them text-searchable, properly bookmarked, and correctly combined; strip metadata when needed.

3. Name it right: Use consistent, court-compliant file names and include case numbers and document titles.

4. Mind the clock: Track filing cutoffs and time zones; build buffers for system slowdowns.

5. Service and proofs: Confirm service lists, attach proposed orders if required, and generate proofs/receipts for the file.

6. Protect data: Redact PII and sensitive information per rule; verify final PDFs before upload.

7. Debrief: When a filing bounces, note the reason and update your checklist so it doesn’t happen twice.

The smoother the routine, the fewer late-night scrambles.

How to Display EFiling Skills on Your Resume

7. Document Drafting

Document drafting covers contracts, pleadings, discovery, affidavits, letters, and more. You turn instructions and precedent into clean, compliant, ready-to-file documents.

Why It's Important

Strong drafting protects rights, clarifies obligations, and cuts down on needless disputes. Precision now prevents pain later.

How to Improve Document Drafting Skills

Make clarity your north star:

1. Build a playbook: Maintain clause banks, checklists, and templates for recurring document types.

2. Write plainly: Use clear, direct language; define terms; avoid needless Latin unless required.

3. Structure matters: Numbered headings, logical sections, and clean cross-references help readers move fast.

4. Cite and verify: Confirm authorities, dates, names, and exhibits; align facts with the record.

5. Redline well: Master Track Changes and compare tools; keep version control tight.

6. Quality passes: Run a final formatting sweep—styles, spacing, pagination, TOC—before attorney review.

Concise, consistent, and correct beats ornamental every time.

How to Display DocumentDrafting Skills on Your Resume

8. Proofreading

Proofreading is the last line of defense. You hunt typos, fix grammar, verify cites, confirm names and numbers, and ensure the document reads cleanly and consistently.

Why It's Important

Errors cost credibility. In legal work they can cost time, money, or worse. Meticulous review protects both client and firm.

How to Improve Proofreading Skills

Sharpen your eye and your process:

1. Know the language: Learn legal terms, citation style (e.g., The Bluebook), and firm formatting standards.

2. Read out loud: It surfaces clunky phrasing and small mistakes your eyes gloss over.

3. Break the draft: Review in passes—spelling, then punctuation, then citations, then formatting.

4. Check consistency: Defined terms, numbering, headings, and exhibit labels should march in step.

5. Slow down the tricky bits: Tables, signatures, captions, and certificates deserve extra scrutiny.

6. Scrub metadata: Remove hidden comments and tracked changes before filing or sending.

When in doubt, a fresh set of eyes saves the day.

How to Display Proofreading Skills on Your Resume

9. Transcription

Transcription converts spoken words—dictation, interviews, hearings—into precise text. Fast, accurate, confidential.

Why It's Important

Clean transcripts power briefs, discovery, and strategy. Misheard or dropped words can warp meaning and derail arguments.

How to Improve Transcription Skills

Build speed without sacrificing accuracy:

1. Type with accuracy first: Speed follows; practice daily drills to cement rhythm.

2. Know the jargon: Legal terminology, case names, and local practice terms should be second nature.

3. Use the right tools: Reliable headset, configurable playback, and (if permitted) a foot pedal help control the audio.

4. Active listening: Anticipate phrasing, rewind lightly, and mark inaudibles for prompt clarification.

5. Proof before delivery: Run a final pass to fix homophones, names, and punctuation.

6. Guard confidentiality: Secure files, follow retention policies, and avoid public networks.

Accuracy is the brand. Let speed serve it, not sabotage it.

How to Display Transcription Skills on Your Resume

10. Scheduling

Scheduling coordinates court dates, client meetings, deadlines, and internal milestones. The calendar is a command center, not a suggestion box.

Why It's Important

Missed dates erode trust. Smart scheduling keeps priorities aligned and workstreams flowing.

How to Improve Scheduling Skills

Build a calendar system that never blinks:

1. Prioritize clearly: Triage urgent vs. important; plot critical path deadlines first.

2. Share and standardize: Use shared calendars, categories, and color codes the whole team understands.

3. Automate reminders: Layer reminders—days, hours, minutes—based on task complexity.

4. Know court time rules: Apply time-computation rules and account for holidays and service types.

5. Leave buffers: Build travel and prep time into the calendar; avoid back-to-back traps.

6. Confirm and reconfirm: Send concise confirmations and day-before checks for key events.

Reliable calendars make reliable teams.

How to Display Scheduling Skills on Your Resume

11. Billing

Billing covers time capture, expenses, invoices, trust accounting coordination, and follow-up. Accuracy builds trust; clarity gets you paid.

Why It's Important

Clean bills reduce disputes and improve cash flow. They also give clients visibility into effort and value.

How to Improve Billing Skills

Make the numbers tell a clear story:

1. Capture time contemporaneously: Enter as you work; use timers and activity codes for consistency.

2. Describe clearly: Specific, client-friendly narratives reduce questions and write-downs.

3. Pre-bill review: Audit entries for accuracy, duplicates, and scope alignment before invoices go out.

4. Standard formats: Where applicable, support LEDES or client-required formats; tag tasks and expenses correctly.

5. Trust and retainers: Coordinate retainer replenishment and trust transfers per policy and ethics rules.

6. Aging discipline: Track receivables, send timely reminders, and escalate respectfully.

The habit of precision here pays the lights and keeps clients happy.

How to Display Billing Skills on Your Resume

12. Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is the daily toolkit: Word for drafting, Excel for data and tracking, Outlook for email and calendars, PowerPoint for visuals, and OneNote for organized notes.

Why It's Important

These tools carry most of the load. Mastery means fewer manual fixes, faster turnarounds, and documents that behave.

How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills

Turn features into force multipliers:

1. Word: Use styles, templates, automatic numbering, cross-references, TOC/TOA, and Compare; live in Track Changes.

2. Excel: Build clean tables, filter and sort, use pivot tables, and apply formulas like XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, and NETWORKDAYS for deadline math.

3. Outlook: Create rules, Quick Steps, and categories; schedule with shared calendars and smart reminders.

4. OneNote: Centralize case notes, checklists, and research snippets; tag and search fast.

5. Speed: Learn keyboard shortcuts and create reusable templates; consider simple macros for repetitive tasks.

6. Consistency: Store templates and style guides in a shared location so the team drafts the same way.

Once the toolkit is tuned, everything else moves quicker.

How to Display MicrosoftOffice Skills on Your Resume