Top 12 Litigation Assistant Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today’s fast-moving legal world, a crisp, targeted resume does heavy lifting for litigation assistants. Spotlight the top 12 skills and you don’t just look qualified—you look indispensable.
Litigation Assistant Skills
- LexisNexis
- Westlaw
- PACER
- E-filing
- CaseMap
- Time Matters
- Document Review
- Trial Preparation
- Deposition Summaries
- Legal Research
- Discovery Management
- Transcription Accuracy
1. LexisNexis
LexisNexis is a deep legal research and analytics platform offering case law, statutes, secondary sources, news, dockets, and tools that tie it all together—exactly what a litigation team leans on when speed and accuracy matter.
Why It's Important
It centralizes reliable authority and lets you validate, organize, and track research efficiently, so filings are stronger and deadlines don’t wobble.
How to Improve LexisNexis Skills
Master search syntax: Use Boolean, segments, filters, and post-search refinements. Precision beats scrolling.
Work with citators: Shepardize to confirm good law and follow treatments to uncover counterarguments.
Customize the workspace: Pin sources, build folders, save searches, and enable alerts for cases, topics, or parties.
Use analysis tools: Brief analysis, phrase suggestions, and practical guidance materials can shortcut drafting.
Stay mobile and integrated: Sync with your case management tools and use mobile access when you’re on the run.
Small habits—saved searches, tidy folders, vigilant citator checks—compound into serious time savings.
How to Display LexisNexis Skills on Your Resume
2. Westlaw
Westlaw is a comprehensive research platform with robust search, validation, and practical resources to support drafting and strategy across the life of a case.
Why It's Important
It delivers fast, trustworthy answers, surfacing controlling authority and context so the team can move decisively.
How to Improve Westlaw Skills
Dial in your preferences: Set favorite databases, delivery templates, and folder structures you’ll actually reuse.
Search like a pro: Combine terms and connectors, field restrictors, and filters. Let WestSearch work, but steer it.
Rely on KeyCite: Validate every case and statute, mine citing references, and watch for negative treatment.
Leverage Practical Law: Templates, checklists, and notes speed up drafting and lower risk of omissions.
Keep sharpening: Take periodic trainings, practice with complex fact patterns, and document your favorite workflows.
The goal: fewer dead ends, cleaner research trails, stronger cites.
How to Display Westlaw Skills on Your Resume
3. PACER
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) provides federal dockets, filings, and case metadata essential for tracking matters and pulling the right documents fast.
Why It's Important
Docket awareness drives strategy. You’ll monitor deadlines, grab filings, and catch developments before they catch you.
How to Improve PACER Skills
Search with intent: Use Boolean, party fields, and case-type filters. Narrow by court and date to cut noise.
Work the Case Locator: Set alerts for new filings or updates and keep watch lists by client or matter.
Organize downloads: Standardize filenames with court, case number, date, and short description; save dockets alongside PDFs.
Manage costs: Batch downloads, rely on docket text when possible, and reconcile charges with client/matter billing codes.
Mind redaction rules: Follow FRCP 5.2 privacy requirements and local rules before anything is filed or shared.
Clean habits here prevent missed deadlines and messy folders later.
How to Display PACER Skills on Your Resume
4. E-filing
E-filing is the electronic submission of pleadings and other papers through court-approved systems, with strict technical and procedural rules shadowing each click.
Why It's Important
Timely, compliant filings keep cases alive and clients protected. Errors cost time, and occasionally, rights.
How to Improve E-filing Skills
Know the rules: Track local rules, standing orders, size limits, bookmarking, and text-searchable PDF requirements.
Standardize documents: Use PDF/A where required, apply OCR, add bookmarks for exhibits, and scrub metadata.
Adopt naming conventions: Matter code, doc type, party, and date. No guessing games later.
Run a preflight checklist: Captions, signatures, proposed orders, exhibits, certificates of service, and correct event codes.
Confirm submission: Save receipt emails and file-stamped copies; note the exact timestamp and docket entry.
Build redundancy: Have a backup filer and a contingency plan for portal outages and last-minute rejections.
Smooth e-filing is part craft, part discipline.
How to Display E-filing Skills on Your Resume
5. CaseMap
CaseMap (including CaseMap Cloud) is a fact, issue, and evidence management tool that lets teams build a living case story—who, what, when, why—linked to sources.
Why It's Important
It turns scattered facts into coherent theories, accelerating strategy and surfacing gaps early.
How to Improve CaseMap Skills
Structure the case file: Build chronologies, issues lists, people/orgs, and source links from day one.
Tag with purpose: Apply issue, privilege, and responsiveness tags; filter to test theories quickly.
Link everything: Tie each fact to a document, transcript page-line, or exhibit. Auditability matters.
Report smartly: Generate issue summaries, timelines, and witness packets that attorneys can use immediately.
Integrate research: Connect your legal authorities and notes so the factual and legal narratives travel together.
The more consistent the inputs, the more persuasive the outputs.
How to Display CaseMap Skills on Your Resume
6. Time Matters
Time Matters is legal practice management software for calendars, tasks, contacts, documents, and timekeeping—designed to keep cases moving without loose threads.
Why It's Important
It anchors deadlines, standardizes workflows, and centralizes information so the team’s effort compounds instead of colliding.
How to Improve Time Matters Skills
Customize for litigation: Add fields for court, judge, case stage, and key dates; tailor matter templates.
Automate documents: Use merge templates for captions, notices, and shells to cut drafting time.
Enforce workflows: Task templates for discovery, motions, and trial prep keep everyone in lockstep.
Sync communications: Integrate email and calendar so filings, hearings, and notes live with the matter.
Tighten security: Role-based access, ethical walls, and audit trails protect sensitive data.
Measure and maintain: Build dashboards and reports; archive old matters and clean duplicates regularly.
Good configuration turns a database into a force multiplier.
How to Display TimeMatters Skills on Your Resume
7. Document Review
Document review means sorting, coding, and analyzing mountains of material to find the few pages that move the needle—while safeguarding privilege and meeting discovery duties.
Why It's Important
It shapes what the court sees and when. Strong review work underpins strategy, negotiations, and trial.
How to Improve Document Review Skills
Set a protocol: Issue codes, responsiveness criteria, privilege rules, and escalation paths before first click.
Lean on tech: Use deduplication, email threading, near-dup analysis, and technology-assisted review where appropriate.
QC relentlessly: Random sampling, second-level review, and audit reports to ensure consistency.
Track decisions: Maintain decision logs, exemplar sets, and privilege justifications for defensibility.
Collaborate cleanly: Clear communication with counsel on evolving issues, search terms, and scope changes.
Close the loop: After action reviews—what worked, what didn’t, and updates to the playbook.
Discipline here saves hours—and cases.
How to Display Document Review Skills on Your Resume
8. Trial Preparation
Trial prep stitches together documents, witnesses, demonstratives, and logistics into a coherent presentation that holds up under pressure.
Why It's Important
When court starts, there’s no time for rummaging. Preparation turns chaos into clarity.
How to Improve Trial Preparation Skills
Build the record: Exhibits with Bates ranges, foundations, objections, and premarked sets—both digital and physical.
Craft witness kits: Outlines, expected exhibits, impeachment clips, and quick-reference fact sheets.
Plan the calendar: Deadlines for pretrial filings, motions in limine, jury instructions, and exhibit exchanges.
Polish presentation: Prepare callouts, timelines, and video clips; test hardware and backups in advance.
Rehearse the flow: War room checklist, witness schedules, exhibit handoff protocols, and day-of roles.
Redundancy wins: Spare cables, drives, laptops, and printed sets for worst-case moments.
Confidence in court comes from the grind before it.
How to Display Trial Preparation Skills on Your Resume
9. Deposition Summaries
Deposition summaries condense long transcripts into sharp, usable notes keyed to page and line—what was said, where, and why it matters.
Why It's Important
They speed strategy meetings, motion drafting, and trial prep, putting the gold on top and the fluff in the rearview.
How to Improve Deposition Summaries Skills
Clarify the purpose: Digest, page–line, or objective summary? Match the format to the task.
Anchor to the case theory: Tag admissions, contradictions, damages points, and foundation for exhibits.
Keep citations tight: Page-line references for every key point; include exhibit numbers and timestamps where relevant.
Use signposts: Headings for topics, quick bullet highlights, and short analyst notes for context.
Proof meticulously: Names, dates, technical terms—verify against the transcript before circulating.
Iterate with counsel: Incorporate feedback to align future summaries with attorney preferences.
Summaries should be skim-friendly yet legally precise.
How to Display Deposition Summaries Skills on Your Resume
10. Legal Research
Legal research is the disciplined hunt for binding authority and persuasive analysis that supports the argument you need to make—no filler, just force.
Why It's Important
Good research shapes strategy, narrows issues, and inoculates your filings against avoidable attacks.
How to Improve Legal Research Skills
Start broad, then narrow: Secondary sources for orientation; cases and statutes for the spine.
Think like the court: Jurisdiction first, then recency and treatment; prioritize controlling authority.
Use citators always: Validate every cite and mine citing references for helpful reasoning.
Track the trail: Keep a research log of queries, sources, and outcomes so you don’t chase the same path twice.
Exploit alerts: Set notifications on key issues, parties, and statutes to catch developments early.
Write while researching: Summarize holdings and relevance in your notes. Drafting later becomes faster and cleaner.
Method beats marathon searches every time.
How to Display Legal Research Skills on Your Resume
11. Discovery Management
Discovery management covers preservation, collection, review, and production of information—paper and electronic—with an eye on rules, deadlines, and proportionality.
Why It's Important
Handled well, it surfaces the evidence you need and avoids sanctions. Handled poorly, it becomes the story of the case.
How to Improve Discovery Management Skills
Start with a plan: Draft an ESI protocol, outline scope and formats, and prep for the meet-and-confer.
Preserve early: Litigation holds, custodial interviews, and clear collection instructions with chain of custody.
Search with strategy: Iterative keyword testing, date filters, and sampling; document the approach.
Protect privilege: Use privilege tags, reasons, and a defensible log; apply careful redactions with QC.
Produce cleanly: Follow agreed formats (TIFF/PDF/native), include load files, and verify Bates ranges.
Track everything: Deadlines, objections, rolling productions, and clawback issues—all logged and reconciled.
Discipline and documentation are the twin rails of defensible discovery.
How to Display Discovery Management Skills on Your Resume
12. Transcription Accuracy
Transcription accuracy means converting spoken words into text with strict fidelity—names, citations, and nuance intact.
Why It's Important
The record is sacred. Errors ripple into motions, briefs, and decisions, so accuracy isn’t optional.
How to Improve Transcription Accuracy Skills
Start with clean audio: Quality microphones, quiet rooms, and noise control matter more than heroics later.
Use the right tools: Foot pedals, variable-speed playback, and dependable transcription software increase precision.
Adopt templates: Consistent formatting, speaker IDs, timestamps where needed, and a dedicated style guide.
Know the jargon: Legal terms, case names, and citations—verify spellings and capitalize correctly.
Proof in two passes: First pass for completeness, second for fine-grain errors and punctuation.
Protect confidentiality: Secure storage, limited access, and redaction protocols when sharing excerpts.
Slow is fast here. Accuracy first, polish next.
How to Display Transcription Accuracy Skills on Your Resume
