Top 12 Real Estate Paralegal Skills to Put on Your Resume
In real estate law, the paralegal is the quiet engine that keeps deals from stalling. The work is exacting, time-bound, and often messy at the edges. When your resume signals the right blend of research savvy, document mastery, and transaction cadence, your name starts getting pulled to the top of the stack.
Real Estate Paralegal Skills
- LexisNexis
- Westlaw
- Title Examination
- Contract Drafting
- Due Diligence
- Microsoft Office
- Adobe Acrobat
- Closing Coordination
- Document Review
- Zoning Compliance
- Property Management Software (e.g., AppFolio)
- E-filing
1. LexisNexis
LexisNexis delivers legal research, public records, and practical guidance in one dense ecosystem, letting a real estate paralegal run due diligence, verify parties, and surface authority without wasting daylight.
Why It's Important
It centralizes statutes, cases, secondary sources, and public records, which sharpens title reviews, supports clean drafting, and keeps your diligence grounded in current law.
How to Improve LexisNexis Skills
Level up by targeting how you search and what you save.
Training and certification: Take real estate–focused courses through LexisNexis University and complete product certifications to cement muscle memory.
Workspace tuning: Pin your go-to sources, filters, and practice guides. Save favorite searches. Build a foldering scheme you’ll actually use.
Search craft: Combine Boolean strings with jurisdiction and date restrictions. Use segment searching to cut noise fast.
Alerts: Set topic and jurisdiction alerts so updates find you instead of the other way around.
Templates and checklists: Store firm-approved forms and checklists in folders for quick pull-through during closings.
Small tweaks pile up into big time savings when deadlines crowd the calendar.
How to Display LexisNexis Skills on Your Resume
2. Westlaw
Westlaw is a research hub from Thomson Reuters. Think cases, statutes, regs, treatises, forms, and editorial enhancements that speed interpretation.
Why It's Important
When a transaction turns thorny—easements, covenants, development rights—fast, accurate research steadies the deal. Westlaw’s headnotes, KeyCite, and practice materials keep your work grounded and defensible.
How to Improve Westlaw Skills
Make it work like a tailored tool, not a generic library.
Preference calibration: Set default jurisdictions, databases, and delivery formats that match your caseload.
Practice-area depth: Live inside the Real Property practice center for forms, checklists, and current awareness specific to transactions and litigation.
Boolean fluency: Use connectors, field restrictions, and date filters. Narrow first, then widen.
Editorial shortcuts: Ride headnotes, Key Numbers, and citing references to map how courts treat an issue.
Pro training: Complete Westlaw trainings and office hours to shave minutes off every search.
Speed plus accuracy wins closings and quiets risk.
How to Display Westlaw Skills on Your Resume
3. Title Examination
Title examination means combing through deeds, mortgages, liens, easements, plats, court actions—every breadcrumb that touches the chain of title—then flagging defects and clearing them before the ink dries.
Why It's Important
Clean title protects the deal and the client. Miss a lien or a break in the chain, and problems don’t just nibble—they bite.
How to Improve Title Examination Skills
Build a system and stick to it, even on chaotic days.
Know the ground rules: Master state and local recording statutes, marketable title standards, and common curative paths.
Research discipline: Use legal research platforms and public record indexes. Cross-check grantor/grantee, UCC, tax, and court dockets.
Vendor savvy: Work with reputable title search providers and understand their scope limits so you can fill gaps.
Battle-tested checklist: Follow a stepwise list for each property type (residential, commercial, land) to prevent omissions.
Continuing education: Take title-specific webinars from bar sections, land title associations, and paralegal groups.
Reps and reviews: Practice on mock files; review cured files to see what tripped others up.
Pattern recognition grows with volume—and with ruthless consistency.
How to Display Title Examination Skills on Your Resume
4. Contract Drafting
Drafting in real estate is the craft of translating intent into enforceable text—purchase and sale agreements, leases, addenda, assignments, estoppels—clean, specific, compliant.
Why It's Important
Clarity up front saves disputes later. Precise obligations, dates, remedies, and contingencies keep everyone aligned and the transaction on schedule.
How to Improve Contract Drafting Skills
Write for humans, with rigor.
Foundations first: Refresh contract law and real property basics using trusted references like the Legal Information Institute and state bar guides.
Client reality: Mirror the client’s risk profile and business goals. Don’t force a one-size clause on a bespoke deal.
Plain language: Cut needless jargon. Define terms once. Use short, purposeful sentences where it matters most (money, deadlines, remedies).
Specificity: Dates, delivery mechanics, exhibits, notice addresses—spell them out. Ambiguity is expensive.
Redline discipline: Track changes meticulously. Use document comparison and keep a change log for contentious points.
Stay current: Follow bar sections, ABA publications, and local practice updates; revise templates when laws shift.
Peer review: Quick second eyes catch the gremlins you glossed over.
Good drafting reads simple. Getting there is anything but.
How to Display Contract Drafting Skills on Your Resume
5. Due Diligence
Due diligence is the spine of a transaction: verifying ownership, encumbrances, leases, zoning, environmental flags, financial obligations, and anything else that could dent value or stall closing.
Why It's Important
It sifts signal from noise. You surface risk early, craft solutions, and keep the deal honest.
How to Improve Due Diligence Skills
Think in checklists, timelines, and proofs.
Document sweep: Gather deeds, surveys, title commitments, UCCs, tax statements, HOA docs, leases, estoppels, insurance, and corporate authority.
Compliance checks: Confirm zoning, permitted uses, variances, building code status, and certificates of occupancy with local authorities.
Liens and encumbrances: Search county recorder indexes, state secretary of state UCC registries, and municipal tax rolls. Confirm releases are recorded, not merely promised.
Insurance and title: Scrub title exceptions. Push endorsements and requirements with the title insurer. Don’t accept vague exceptions without backup.
Physical review: Coordinate inspections, review reports, and tie findings to credits, repairs, or walk-away rights.
Numbers that add up: Model prorations, rent rolls, operating expenses, and closing adjustments in a simple but accurate spreadsheet.
Paper trail: Keep a diligence matrix with status dates and responsible parties. Nothing gets lost in the shuffle.
Thorough beats fast—until a deadline looms. Build a process that handles both.
How to Display Due Diligence Skills on Your Resume
6. Microsoft Office
Word for drafting, Excel for numbers and lists, Outlook for deadlines and threads, PowerPoint for client briefings, OneNote for the “don’t forget this” bits. The suite is the daily toolbox.
Why It's Important
You’ll live in these apps. Contracts, closing binders, rent rolls, cap tables, schedules, calendars—everything routes through Office.
How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills
Turn the basics into superpowers.
Word templates: Build clause libraries, styles, and content controls so documents snap into shape without a wrestling match.
Excel mastery: Use tables, data validation, pivot tables, and lookup functions for rent rolls, prorations, and closing statements.
Outlook discipline: Rules, categories, shared mailboxes, and follow-up flags. Put reminders on critical dates and deliverables.
Teams and OneDrive: Co-author in real time, version files safely, and centralize matter folders with permissions that make sense.
E-sign and PDFs: Connect with e-signature and PDF tools to reduce printing, scanning, and delay.
Speed comes from templates and automation, not typing faster.
How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume
7. Adobe Acrobat
Acrobat Pro is the PDF command center: assemble, edit, OCR, redact, Bates-stamp, secure, and collect signatures—without breaking your file structure.
Why It's Important
Real estate deals run on PDFs. Clean, searchable, and secure documents prevent last-minute chaos and filing rejections.
How to Improve Adobe Acrobat Skills
Squeeze more from the toolkit.
OCR and enhance: Convert scans into searchable text, fix skew, and optimize file sizes for e-filing portals.
Forms and templates: Build fillable forms for affidavits, estoppels, and standard disclosures. Auto-calc fields where appropriate.
Action Wizard: Automate repeated steps—apply headers, footers, Bates numbers, and remove metadata in one shot.
Protection: Apply passwords, permissions, redactions, and digital signatures. Log who signed and when.
Compare and combine: Use document compare for redlines and portfolio features for closing binders.
Tight files, fewer errors, smoother closings.
How to Display Adobe Acrobat Skills on Your Resume
8. Closing Coordination
Closing coordination is choreography: calendars, checklists, lenders, escrow, title, clients, brokers, inspectors, the wire—each one on cue, no stumbles.
Why It's Important
Mistimed tasks cause delays, interest costs, or worse. A steady coordinator keeps signatures, funds, and recordings aligned.
How to Improve Closing Coordination Skills
Make process your ally.
Centralized trackers: Use a shared closing checklist with dates, owners, and status. Color-code critical path items.
Communication cadences: Send brief, regular updates to all parties. Short summaries beat sprawling email threads.
Task systems: Use project boards or task apps (Trello, Asana, Monday, your DMS) to keep assignments visible.
Secure document exchange: Cloud folders with permissions. No loose email attachments for sensitive data.
Wire safety: Confirm instructions by known phone numbers. Freeze last-minute changes unless verified out-of-band.
Post-closing discipline: Recording, policy issuance, binders, and ticklers for trailing docs—close the loop.
Predictability is a competitive advantage.
How to Display Closing Coordination Skills on Your Resume
9. Document Review
Document review in real estate means verifying accuracy and consistency across contracts, title commitments, loan packages, leases, amendments, and closing statements. Every page should earn its keep.
Why It's Important
Errors metastasize. Careful review prevents expensive corrections, litigation sparks, and rejected filings.
How to Improve Document Review Skills
Less eyeballing, more systems.
Document management: Use legal DMS software with versioning, audit trails, and standardized naming so the right draft is always in sight.
Checklists by document type: One for PSAs, one for leases, one for loan packages, one for deeds. Tailored, not generic.
Technology assist: Employ compare tools, clause detection, and structured data extraction to speed high-volume reviews.
Two-pass method: First pass for structure and required exhibits. Second for numbers, dates, and defined terms alignment.
Peer spot checks: Quick reviews by a colleague for key documents or money pages.
Retrospectives: After closing, note what slipped and update the checklist to prevent repeats.
Quality scales when process scales.
How to Display Document Review Skills on Your Resume
10. Zoning Compliance
Zoning compliance confirms that how a property is used—and how it might be altered—matches local ordinances, maps, overlays, and permits.
Why It's Important
A dream project can’t outrun a zoning code. Confirm early or risk costly redesigns and delays.
How to Improve Zoning Compliance Skills
Work from the source, then validate.
Master the code: Read the local ordinance and zoning map, not just summaries. Overlay districts and conditional uses matter.
Verify status: Pull zoning verification letters or confirmations where available. Check open permits and violations.
Permitted uses and intensity: Map the proposed use against permitted and conditional uses, density, height, FAR, parking, and setbacks.
Path to approval: If nonconforming, outline routes—variances, special permits, site plan approvals—and timelines.
Talk to officials: A short call with planning staff can save weeks of guesswork.
Documentation: Keep memos, emails, applications, notices, and decisions organized for the record.
Supplement with guidance from planning associations and local realtor groups—but let the code and staff confirmations rule.
How to Display Zoning Compliance Skills on Your Resume
11. Property Management Software (e.g., AppFolio)
Property management platforms—AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi, and peers—centralize leasing, payments, maintenance, communications, and reporting. For paralegals, they’re also a repository for leases, notices, and compliance records.
Why It's Important
Better data, faster pulls. When a dispute flares or a lender asks for reports, you can produce clean, consistent documents in minutes.
How to Improve Property Management Software (e.g., AppFolio) Skills
Tune the system for legal workflows.
Document and e-sign flows: Standardize templates, approval paths, and e-signature steps for leases, renewals, and notices.
Compliance dashboards: Track deadlines for renewals, notice periods, inspections, permits, and fair housing training.
Automated alerts: Configure reminders for critical dates—option windows, rent escalations, insurance expirations.
Security posture: Enforce role-based access, MFA, encryption at rest/in transit, and audit logs in line with NIST-aligned practices.
Custom reports: Build legal-ready reports (rent roll extracts, delinquency summaries, tenant ledgers) that export cleanly.
Screening controls: Use consistent, documented criteria for background and credit checks to mitigate fair housing risk.
Calendar sync: Sync tasks and key dates with firm calendars so nothing slips through.
Role training: Short playbooks and recorded walkthroughs for paralegal tasks inside the platform.
A well-configured system turns scramble time into two clicks and done.
How to Display Property Management Software (e.g., AppFolio) Skills on Your Resume
12. E-filing
E-filing is submitting legal documents electronically to courts and public offices—deeds for recording, litigation documents, affidavits—through approved portals.
Why It's Important
It cuts lead time, provides instant confirmations, and reduces rejected filings when you match the portal’s rules exactly.
How to Improve E-filing Skills
Think like a clerk and a records manager.
Know the portal: Each jurisdiction has its quirks—accepted formats, size caps, naming rules, time zone deadlines. Keep a quick-reference sheet.
PDF perfection: Text-searchable, properly bookmarked, flattened forms if required, with removed metadata. Combine exhibits cleanly.
Account hygiene: Use strong MFA, least-privilege access, and separate roles for preparers and approvers.
Automation: Templates for cover sheets, captions, and service lists. Auto-fill where permissible to cut typos.
Chain of custody: Save receipts, timestamps, and conformed copies in the matter folder immediately after submission.
Training updates: Courts change specs. Review portal notices and refresh team training quarterly.
Precision now prevents rejections later—when the clock is least forgiving.
How to Display E-filing Skills on Your Resume
