Top 12 Staff Attorney Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a standout resume as a staff attorney means showing off a sharp blend of legal know-how, relentless analysis, and people skills that actually move matters forward. Below, you’ll find the top 12 skills worth spotlighting—what they are, why they matter, and practical ways to sharpen them so your expertise lands with weight in a crowded field.

Staff Attorney Skills

1. LexisNexis
2. Westlaw
3. Contract Negotiation
4. Litigation Management
5. Compliance
6. Document Review
7. CaseMap
8. Time Matters
9. Legal Research
10. E-Discovery
11. ProLaw
12. Trial Preparation

1. LexisNexis

LexisNexis is a powerful legal research platform with deep libraries of cases, statutes, regulations, treatises, and news, helping staff attorneys build arguments, find authority, and pressure-test strategy.

Why It's Important

It compresses time. Fast access to current law and analytical tools means stronger advice, cleaner drafts, and fewer blind spots when stakes spike.

How to Improve LexisNexis Skills

1. Work the citator. Shepardize early and often to confirm good law, trace depth of treatment, and surface stronger precedent.

2. Dial in search strategy. Combine terms-and-connectors with filters (jurisdiction, date, practice area) and iterate quickly using search history.

3. Lean on secondary sources. Practice guides and treatises can shortcut hours of spinning; mine footnotes for gold.

4. Save and alert. Store searches, set updates on key topics, and keep a working folder for each matter.

5. Use tools, not just text. Explore brief analysis, visualization, and citation tools to spot gaps and sharpen relevance.

6. Build a repeatable workflow. Templates for common issues, checklists for statutory research, and a short rubric for when to stop.

How to Display LexisNexis Skills on Your Resume

2. Westlaw

Westlaw is a comprehensive research platform featuring case law, statutes, regulations, editorial enhancements, and drafting aids that help attorneys map arguments and validate positions.

Why It's Important

Authoritative content plus robust tools translate to faster answers, tighter briefs, and fewer missteps when timelines get brutal.

How to Improve Westlaw Skills

1. Exploit the Key Number System. Jump from a single headnote to a structured universe of related authority.

2. KeyCite with discipline. Check status, negative treatment, and depth signals before you build on any case.

3. Refine searches with precision. Boolean logic, field restrictions, and jurisdiction filters make noise vanish.

4. Mine practical resources. Check forms, checklists, and drafting notes to accelerate negotiation and motion practice.

5. Organize as you go. Use folders, highlights, notes, and alerts to create a living research spine for each matter.

6. Post-mortem your queries. Review what worked, rename saved searches, and keep a short playbook for recurring issues.

How to Display Westlaw Skills on Your Resume

3. Contract Negotiation

Contract negotiation is the push and pull of aligning business objectives with legal protections, converting risk into terms, and closing deals without leaving landmines behind.

Why It's Important

It protects the enterprise. Clarity reduces disputes, allocations curb exposure, and well-aimed clauses keep operations humming.

How to Improve Contract Negotiation Skills

1. Prep like a strategist. Define must-haves, trade-offs, fallbacks, and the walk-away point (your BATNA). Build a heat map of high-risk clauses.

2. Use a clause playbook. Preferred language, acceptable alternates, and rationale so you negotiate swiftly and consistently.

3. Redline with purpose. Keep versions lean, comment with reasons, and propose options rather than hard no’s.

4. Quantify risk. Tie positions to a simple risk matrix (impact x likelihood) and align with business owners on escalation triggers.

5. Write plainly. Precision and brevity prevent later arguments. Avoid mushy verbs and undefined obligations.

6. Close the loop. Capture obligations, set reminders, and track post-signature performance so bargains don’t decay.

How to Display Contract Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

4. Litigation Management

Litigation management is the orchestration of case strategy, budgets, calendars, discovery, counsel, and reporting to drive matters to smart resolutions.

Why It's Important

Good process cuts waste, shrinks surprises, and aligns legal moves with business goals. That’s how matters finish well.

How to Improve Litigation Management Skills

1. Standardize intake and plans. Use matter profiles, early case assessments, and discovery roadmaps with firm deadlines.

2. Track what matters. Centralized calendars, rules-based docketing, and clear task ownership keep deadlines intact.

3. Budget with eyes open. Phase matters, estimate costs, compare actuals, and adjust strategy early—not after invoices land.

4. Upgrade collaboration. Shared workspaces, structured status reports, and crisp decision logs reduce drift.

5. Leverage analytics. Study judge tendencies, venue timelines, and settlement patterns to position smartly.

6. Manage discovery tightly. Scope, privilege rules, production specs, and QC gates to control cost and chaos.

7. Debrief after resolution. Capture lessons, update playbooks, and retire tactics that didn’t perform.

How to Display Litigation Management Skills on Your Resume

5. Compliance

Compliance means building systems that keep the organization aligned with laws, regulations, and internal policies—and proving it.

Why It's Important

It prevents costly errors, protects reputation, and creates reliable guardrails for growth.

How to Improve Compliance Skills

1. Run risk assessments. Prioritize high-impact laws, map controls, and set testing cadence.

2. Harden policies and training. Plain-language policies, role-based microlearning, and clean acknowledgment trails.

3. Monitor continuously. KPIs, audits, and dashboards that trigger action when trends wobble.

4. Investigate well. Clear intake channels, triage criteria, documentation standards, and remediation tracking.

5. Govern third parties. Due diligence, contractual controls, and periodic reviews—especially for data and sanctions risk.

6. Report up. Summaries for leadership and the board that connect risks to operations and spend.

How to Display Compliance Skills on Your Resume

6. Document Review

Document review is the disciplined sift of records to spot relevance, privilege, confidentiality, and the story that actually wins.

Why It's Important

It shapes the evidence universe. Miss less, spend smarter, and surface what matters early.

How to Improve Document Review Skills

1. Start with a tight protocol. Issues list, definitions, tagging schema, privilege rules, and escalation paths.

2. Use smart culling. De-duplication, email threading, date ranges, and custodian scoping before eyes hit pages.

3. Apply technology-assisted review. Prioritize likely-relevant material with continuous active learning and sampling.

4. Protect sensitive data. Redaction standards for PII/PHI, secure workspaces, and audit trails.

5. QC relentlessly. Random samples, second-level checks, and metrics on precision/recall to keep quality tight.

6. Document decisions. Keep a playbook of calls, tricky edge cases, and exemplar documents for reviewer consistency.

How to Display Document Review Skills on Your Resume

7. CaseMap

CaseMap is case analysis software that links facts, issues, people, and evidence so matters don’t sprawl into chaos.

Why It's Important

It centralizes the case story. Patterns pop. Gaps reveal themselves. Prep accelerates.

How to Improve CaseMap Skills

1. Build a living chronology. Record facts with sources, dates, and citations; tag by issue for fast filtering.

2. Link everything. Tie documents to facts, witnesses to issues, and exhibits to testimony outlines.

3. Use custom fields. Capture what your team actually needs—privilege flags, admissibility notes, or credibility ratings.

4. Report with intent. Tailor exports for internal strategy, mediation briefs, or trial binders.

5. Standardize templates. Reuse issue lists, fact categories, and naming conventions across matters.

6. Keep it fresh. Weekly hygiene passes to retire stale items and highlight new evidence threads.

How to Display CaseMap Skills on Your Resume

8. Time Matters

Time Matters is legal case and document management software that corrals calendars, tasks, emails, and files in a matter-centric spine.

Why It's Important

Deadlines stick. Documents live where they belong. Productivity climbs without extra heroics.

How to Improve Time Matters Skills

1. Tune matter templates. Auto-create tasks, dates, and folders tailored to practice type.

2. Automate the routine. Document assembly, recurring tasks, and workflows that remove handoffs.

3. Master email filing. Get consistent with matter tagging, rules, and quick-steps.

4. Use dashboards. Surface upcoming deadlines, aging tasks, and at-risk milestones at a glance.

5. Integrate calendars. Rules-based docketing and synchronized reminders reduce misses.

6. Review permissions and security. Least-access principles, audit logs, and periodic cleanups.

How to Display Time Matters Skills on Your Resume

9. Legal Research

Legal research is the hunt for authority—cases, statutes, regs, legislative history, and commentary—that anchors strategy and persuades decision-makers.

Why It's Important

Sound research prevents soft arguments. It also finds the better path when the obvious one dead-ends.

How to Improve Legal Research Skills

1. Work across platforms. Cross-check results on multiple databases and confirm with a citator before relying.

2. Start secondary, finish primary. Use treatises and practice guides to frame issues, then lock in with cases and statutes.

3. Optimize your search mix. Combine structured queries with natural language; refine with fields and filters.

4. Don’t skip the footnotes. Authority chains and niche angles often hide there.

5. Track and update. Maintain a research log, set alerts, and revisit rapidly changing areas.

6. Verify any AI-generated content. Treat it as a lead, not a conclusion; always confirm with primary sources.

How to Display Legal Research Skills on Your Resume

10. E-Discovery

E-Discovery is the disciplined process of preserving, collecting, reviewing, and producing electronically stored information (ESI) for investigations and litigation.

Why It's Important

Most evidence is digital. Getting scope, cost, and defensibility right can swing outcomes.

How to Improve E-Discovery Skills

1. Map the data. Systems, custodians, retention schedules, and cross-border constraints before holds go out.

2. Issue legal holds early. Track acknowledgments and monitor compliance.

3. Right-size scope. Negotiate proportionality, sampling, and phased discovery to control spend.

4. Standardize workflows. Collection protocols, metadata fields, review instructions, and production specs (including Bates and load files).

5. Use TAR wisely. Continuous active learning with validation sets and clear QC metrics.

6. Protect privilege. Clawback language, privilege logs, and targeted checks on risky channels.

7. Secure the data. Role-based access, encryption, and audit trails through the EDRM lifecycle.

How to Display E-Discovery Skills on Your Resume

11. ProLaw

ProLaw is an integrated platform for matter management, timekeeping, billing, and accounting that brings firm operations into one lane.

Why It's Important

Matters, money, and documents stay aligned—billing accuracy improves and administrative friction drops.

How to Improve ProLaw Skills

1. Customize the workspace. Tailor fields, views, and dashboards to your practice and priorities.

2. Capture time promptly. Use timers, mobile entry, and narratives that pass billing review cleanly.

3. Automate routine documents. Templates and merge fields to speed up consistent output.

4. Tighten accounting controls. Trust safeguards, approval workflows, and periodic reconciliations.

5. Clean your data. Naming conventions, archive rules, and scheduled audits to keep the system quick and accurate.

6. Measure and improve. Reports on WIP, realization, cycle times, and budget vs. actual to spot bottlenecks.

How to Display ProLaw Skills on Your Resume

12. Trial Preparation

Trial preparation blends legal theory with logistics: evidence, witnesses, motions, visuals, and timing all locked to a narrative that persuades.

Why It's Important

Preparation wins oxygen. It limits surprises, clarifies choices, and frees the team to advocate instead of firefight.

How to Improve Trial Preparation Skills

1. Set your core theory. Align every exhibit and witness to a few crisp themes.

2. Timeline the facts. Map events against elements and burdens; highlight points of dispute.

3. Organize exhibits early. Pre-mark, track objections, and script foundations for admission.

4. Drill witnesses. Tight outlines, expected cross, and practice on tough questions.

5. Lock in the papers. Motions in limine, proposed jury instructions, and verdict forms refined and filed on time.

6. Prepare demonstratives. Clean visuals—short text, clear labeling, and backups on multiple devices.

7. Rehearse the tech. Test in the actual courtroom if possible: audio, video, adapters, and contingencies.

8. Run mock sessions. Pressure-test openings, closings, and hostile lines to adjust tone and pacing.

How to Display Trial Preparation Skills on Your Resume