Top 12 Legal Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today's competitive legal job market, showcasing the right set of skills on your resume is crucial to standing out among other applicants. This article explores the top 12 legal skills that can sharpen your resume and signal you’re ready to handle the real-world tempo of modern practice.
Legal Skills
- LexisNexis
- Westlaw
- CaseMap
- Time Matters
- Clio Manage
- Concordance
- PACER
- Relativity
- Bluebook
- TrialDirector
- DocuSign
- Adobe Acrobat
1. LexisNexis
LexisNexis is a leading legal research platform that aggregates case law, statutes, regulations, dockets, secondary sources, and news into one searchable ecosystem.
Why It's Important
It delivers depth and speed. With authoritative sources and citators, it helps you find the right precedent, confirm it’s still good law, and craft arguments with confidence.
How to Improve LexisNexis Skills
Dial in your searches with terms-and-connectors and segment filters. Shepardize early and often to validate authorities. Save searches, set alerts, and build folders for matters so research stays organized. Explore Practical Guidance and treatises for context when an issue is new. Use headnotes and topics to pivot across related cases. Practice keyboard shortcuts and refine results with post-search filters so you move faster under deadline.
How to Display LexisNexis Skills on Your Resume
2. Westlaw
Westlaw is a comprehensive online legal research service with case law, statutes, regulations, editorial enhancements, and practical resources.
Why It's Important
Accurate research drives good lawyering. Westlaw’s editorial headnotes, Key Numbers, and KeyCite help you locate controlling authority and verify it in minutes.
How to Improve Westlaw Skills
Master terms-and-connectors and natural language, then tighten results with jurisdiction, date, and document type filters. Use KeyCite to track treatment and negative history. Follow Key Numbers to map an issue and discover overlooked lines of cases. Save favorites, create folders, and turn on alerts for authorities you rely on. Explore Practical Law for checklists and templates that jump-start drafting. Build custom pages for your practice area so your tools are one click away.
How to Display Westlaw Skills on Your Resume
3. CaseMap
CaseMap is a case analysis tool that helps legal teams organize facts, issues, witnesses, and evidence, then connect them into a coherent strategy.
Why It's Important
Structure beats chaos. CaseMap centralizes facts and proof so teams see gaps, strengths, and timelines at a glance.
How to Improve CaseMap Skills
Centralize all case data—facts, documents, people—so there’s one source of truth. Use custom fields and tags tailored to your theory of the case. Link evidence to each fact to tighten admissibility and relevance. Keep entries current; small daily updates beat messy catch-up later. Generate reports and timelines to stress-test themes. Leverage integrations with related research and review tools. Share the file with teammates and set conventions so everyone codes the same way.
How to Display CaseMap Skills on Your Resume
4. Time Matters
Time Matters is a legal practice management platform for calendaring, contacts, matter management, documents, workflows, and billing integrations.
Why It's Important
Matters, deadlines, and documents live together. That means fewer dropped balls, tighter collaboration, and clearer visibility into work and revenue.
How to Improve Time Matters Skills
Customize dashboards and views so the day’s priorities are front and center. Build templates for intakes, pleadings, and emails to keep work product consistent. Connect your email, DMS, and billing to cut double entry. Create workflows for recurring steps—intake to engagement to filing—so tasks trigger automatically. Schedule regular database maintenance and backups. Train the team on naming conventions, saved searches, and shortcuts to keep everything tidy and fast.
How to Display TimeMatters Skills on Your Resume
5. Clio Manage
Clio Manage is a cloud-based practice management system for case management, timekeeping, billing, intake, and client communication.
Why It's Important
It streamlines the business of law—time capture, invoices, trust accounting, and client updates—so lawyers can focus on the legal work.
How to Improve Clio Manage Skills
Customize matter types, stages, and custom fields to match your workflows. Use document templates and automated bill settings to reduce friction. Track time from email, calendar, and mobile so nothing leaks. Connect accounting, e-signature, and storage apps to keep everything in sync. Adopt the client portal for secure messaging and document sharing. Review dashboards monthly and tune processes that bog down. Keep learning through trainings and release notes to pick up new features as they land.
How to Display Clio Manage Skills on Your Resume
6. Concordance
Concordance (often known as LexisNexis Concordance) is a legacy eDiscovery/document review database used to import, search, code, and produce large sets of litigation documents.
Why It's Important
Plenty of cases still live in Concordance. Knowing it means you can search, QC, and produce without missing a beat on long-running matters.
How to Improve Concordance Skills
Learn load file formats and field maps so imports are clean. Use dtSearch syntax, proximity connectors, and stemming to sharpen queries. Create consistent tag palettes and coding layouts to speed review. Build saved searches for QC—e.g., no-issue docs with privilege tags, missing Bates values, or loose natives. Test productions in small batches, verify slipsheets, and check image quality before finalizing. Document your conventions so the team codes the same way.
How to Display Concordance Skills on Your Resume
7. PACER
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) provides online access to U.S. federal court dockets, filings, and opinions.
Why It's Important
It’s the source of truth for federal case activity. Dockets, deadlines, and filed documents—available on demand.
How to Improve PACER Skills
Use the Case Locator and narrow by court, party, and date to avoid noise. Learn docket query options and common short codes for faster navigation. Bookmark frequent cases and track updates by checking recent docket entries first. Download opinions before paid filings when possible to reduce costs. Save documents locally with standardized names and matter folders. Pair your workflow with cost controls—batch downloads, team sharing, and periodic auditing of charges.
How to Display Pacer Skills on Your Resume
8. Relativity
Relativity is a widely used eDiscovery and legal review platform for processing, searching, analyzing, and producing electronically stored information.
Why It's Important
Complex cases hinge on data. Relativity handles scale—ingests terabytes, threads emails, deduplicates documents—and helps teams find what matters.
How to Improve Relativity Skills
Start with the core: workspaces, fields, views, saved searches, and security. Learn analytics—email threading, near-duplicate detection, and concept clustering—to cut review time. Build quality-control searches to catch inconsistent coding. Create production sets with reusable profiles and run test batches. Practice batching, layouts, and keyboard shortcuts to move quickly. If your role supports it, pursue admin or reviewer training and complete scenario-based exercises to cement skills.
How to Display Relativity Skills on Your Resume
9. Bluebook
The Bluebook is the standard citation system for U.S. legal writing, detailing how to cite cases, statutes, regulations, and secondary sources.
Why It's Important
Precision matters. Proper citations ensure clarity, credibility, and easy verification of authorities.
How to Improve Bluebook Skills
Learn the core rules for cases, statutes, and signals, then expand to tables and abbreviations. Build a personal checklist for common sources you cite weekly. Practice by reformatting citations from memos you’ve already written; repetition sticks. Use citation tools if helpful, but always validate by hand. Keep up with the latest edition and any rule changes. Ask for redlines from editors or mentors to spot patterns you miss.
How to Display Bluebook Skills on Your Resume
10. TrialDirector
TrialDirector (often referred to as TrialDirector 360) helps litigators organize and present exhibits, video, and demonstratives seamlessly in court or arbitration.
Why It's Important
Clear visuals win attention. With quick callouts, highlights, and synced video, you can make evidence land cleanly for judge and jury.
How to Improve TrialDirector Skills
Build case libraries with disciplined naming and folders so hot-seat sessions run smoothly. Practice callouts, annotations, and side-by-side comparisons until it’s muscle memory. Sync deposition video with transcripts and create impeachment clips in advance. Rehearse at counsel table with dual screens and a clicker so transitions are smooth under pressure. Always carry redundancies—backup laptop, cables, and exports—because tech gremlins love showtime.
How to Display TrialDirector Skills on Your Resume
11. DocuSign
DocuSign is an electronic signature and agreement platform for preparing, routing, signing, and auditing legal documents.
Why It's Important
It slashes turnaround time, preserves a tamper-evident trail, and supports remote clients without sacrificing compliance.
How to Improve DocuSign Skills
Create reusable templates with roles, routing order, and field validation to eliminate rework. Use conditional logic and required fields to prevent incomplete signatures. Explore authentication options appropriate to risk level. Enable reminders and expirations to keep agreements moving. Store executed copies in the right matter folders and document systems automatically. Learn branding, bulk send, and PowerForms for high-volume workflows. Review envelopes’ audit trails and retention settings so compliance stays tight.
How to Display DocuSign Skills on Your Resume
12. Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is the standard for creating, editing, securing, and reviewing PDFs across legal workflows.
Why It's Important
Courts and clients expect clean, searchable, secure PDFs. Acrobat delivers Bates stamping, redaction, and signatures without drama.
How to Improve Adobe Acrobat Skills
Run OCR on scans and fix recognition errors so text is searchable. Apply Bates numbers consistently across productions. Use true redaction tools (not overlays) and verify with a post-redaction search. Compare documents to spot changes quickly. Build Action Wizard workflows for repetitive steps—flatten, reduce size, add bookmarks, apply headers. Create fillable forms and standardized stamps. Lock permissions and passwords appropriately, then store final PDFs in the correct matter structure.
How to Display Adobe Acrobat Skills on Your Resume
