Overview of the Legal Assistant Position
At an entry level, the role of legal assistant generally includes the performance of the duties of a legal secretary, legal administrative assistant and paralegal. Legal assistants perform a variety of tasks including document preparation, legal research, tracking deadlines, dictation, and treatment of confidential information. With respect to legal secretarial functions, duties for this position include reviewing and proofreading documents, conducting general bookkeeping etc. The legal administrative assistant duties conducted typically include filing, calendaring and billing.
As the position has evolved, legal assistants now require more advanced skills. Employers are looking for applicants who have at least a paralegal certificate or degree because of the demand placed on them for paralegal duties, such as conducting legal research and preparing examination outlines, discovery requests and summarizing depositions, and witness interviews. Legal assistants also perform services for management, which may include drafting letters and memoranda, client intakes, drafting pleadings, preparing trial notebooks, billing, and communicating with clients regarding discovery deadlines and completions . For litigation legal assistants, the position also may include trial preparation functions, such as gathering trial exhibits and assistance with jury instructions and in-limine motions. Additional functions for litigation legal assistants include preparing for pre-trial docket calls, scheduling hearings and monitoring court calendar dates.
Legal assistants must possess certain skills and qualifications. The advertised job description for this position generally lists the following as requirements: Paralegal certification; degree in related field; general understanding of the legal framework; strong verbal and written communication skills; computer knowledge; oral and written communication skills; organizational skills; ability to work as a team member; attention to detail, professionalism and discretion.
The above skills are important for legal assistants in a legal setting because they provide the infrastructure and support that allow attorneys to provide adequate representation to their clients.
Required Elements in Your Resume
Essential Resume Components for Entry Level Legal Assistant
Contact information: Your contact information should be at the top of your resume in a horizontal format across the page. Do not title this "Contact". It is a waste of valuable space. Include your name, telephone number, email address, and physical address (however, if you live in Alaska or Hawaii etc. and are applying to a position in Seattle – then don’t worry about your physical address). Only include one phone number as multiple numbers may signal to an employer that you have poor listening skills.
Summary Statement: A brief statement summarizing your experience and/or relevant skills should be included just below your contact information. A great resume sums the experience and skills of the applicant in a few short sentences. This particular resume was over a page in length and was filled with useless adjectives.
Education: List your educational background next advising of the name of the school, months and year(s) of attendance, and the degree you earned. If you are still in school include your anticipated graduation date. This resume for example had very little to no education listed. Probably not a good choice for an entry level legal assistant!
Relevant work experience: In descending order – this section should highlight any relevant work experience you have had. List the employer’s name, your employment dates, your position, and your duties. There should be no overlap in employment dates as this shows that the applicant was probably unemployed for a very long time. This section should not be longer than two pages and it should not be further than ten years back.
Relevant Skills: This section is perfect for highlighting skills and competencies which a potential employer would value. Such as:
• Strong Dictation Skills
• Strong IT Skills
• Accurate with Numbers
• Interest in Litigation
The skills listed here should be specific to the particular job you are applying for.
Personally – I like resumes to have only three sections. Summary, Interests, and Experience. However, I realize that many people like a four part resume. This is as long as any resume should be so don’t fill superfluous sections with junk please as I’ve seen many times before.
Creating Your Resume Summary Statement
As suggested above, much of the information found in a legal assistant entry level resume will be lifted from other sources on your resume, such as the coursework you completed in college. Essentially, your goal is to synthesize that information into compelling prose that captures your most essential qualifications as a legal assistant.
An entry level resume is typically only one page in length. Since the summary statement typically appears one to two inches from the top of the resume, it takes precedence over all other components. Its brevity is both a blessing and a challenge – because it precedes your experience and education sections, it must do an effective job of summarizing qualifications that the employer will find on the rest of the resume. But since it’s one of the first resume components the employer will read, it also needs to stand out as an effective depiction of your skills and experience.
Effective summary statements are typically four to five lines in length. Some experienced legal assistants have summary statement that are at least ten lines long, but for an entry level resume, you want to keep your statement short and succinct. Below are some examples of compelling summary statements:
Highly organized and detail-oriented recent (school name) graduate with a Bachelor of Art degree in (field name) and strong background in research, writing and analysis as well as administrative duties. Demonstrate proficiency with (technology or program relevant to the position) and other computer systems, along with an ability to handle a variety of assignments simultaneously and with little or no supervision. Capable of accommodating new protocols quickly and thoroughly.
Detail-oriented bilingual professional with strong working knowledge of (legal area) and (legal area) procedures and research and writing experience. Proven track record of providing helpful, efficient support services and maintaining effective working relationships with attorneys and paralegals. Proficient in a variety of computer systems and applications relating to (legal area).
Dedicated multi-lingual administrative professional with classical academic specialization in (subject). Demonstrated background in customer service and support for executive staff members in both the academic and business settings. Excellent organizational and project management skills and aptitude for working with clients, technical personnel, programmers and other staff. Proven analytical skills and deep familiarity with range of (technical skills) programs.
The summary statement should, as a general rule, be short and to the point. Think of it as a quick sales pitch to the reader. You should spend time drafting your summary statement, as it is a key component of your professional presentation.
Adding Your Skills
Skills are the bread and butter of the entry level legal assistant resume. Every single experience should be tied to a key skill. Here are some skills that are relevant to an entry level legal assistant:
Research and Communication
The legal field is all about research. Both legal and non-legal research are a large portion of an entry level legal assistant’s responsibilities. Legal research refers to the use of research tools and databases to look up legal precedents for cases, while non-legal is often about tracking down previous precedents for similar cases to understand how they were handled. Be sure to include communication as part of your legal assistant resume skills. To begin with, your written communication must be immaculate. You will also be responsible for speaking with clients and potential clients, taking notes about their cases, and corresponding between them and their attorney.
Document Preparation
An entry level legal assistant is in charge of preparing a variety of legal documents. Documents vary by practice area. For example, as an assistant to a family law attorney, you will prepare divorce petitions, child custody filing, and pre-nuptials. As an assistant to a corporate law attorney, you will prepare incorporations, contracts, and business licenses. In both scenarios, the quality of the documents produced is important. The majority of your job is formatting and reviewing the documents for errors.
Office Equipment and Software
There is no escaping technology these days. Depending on the firm you work for and the type of law that you practice, you may be involved with or completely responsible for: Include any software specific to your practice area in your resume skills section. If you have experience with the listed software, include it in that section.
Education and Certification Data
In addition to relevant work experience, hiring managers in many cases look for formal education and certifications related to the legal profession on resumes. Among the first things you should list on your resume is information on your education. In general, you should include the name of the degree(s) you earned, the field(s) of study and the date(s) of graduation. If you hold a certificate in the legal field, provide the same information as the degree description below.
If you have not earned a degree yet, you can simply list your degree and field of study, and then include a note indicating "Expected Graduation Date: Month and Year" of when you will complete the final requirements for your degree. Alternately, you can also include the year of study you have completed if you are still in school – e.g. , "Junior" or "Senior."
Among the information many hiring managers and human resources professionals seek are titles like Legal Assistant, Legal Secretary and Paralegal. Unless a particular title is included in the job description you are responding to, you should use a generic title like "Legal Assistant" to describe your field of study, rather than a more specific title like "Paralegal" or "Law Clerk." Otherwise, you could get filtered out by an applicant tracking system before your resume even gets to a hiring manager.
Relevant coursework or certifications may also give you a leg up over other job applicants. If, for example, you are pursuing a certification in bankruptcy, and bankruptcy appears (or is implied through terminology) in the job description, including that certification may give you an advantage.
How to Deal with Your Experience Section
The "Experience" section of any resume is your opportunity to include information about your past jobs that show you would be an asset to the firm. However, a traditional "length of service + job title" approach doesn’t always work on an entry level legal assistant resume. Whether you are just out of school or have had a career before this one, you need to include information that shows your aptitude and willingness to learn.
Your legal assistant resume should identify any legal field volunteer work, official internships or unofficial office work that indicates experience and interest in clerical functions, administration or the specific areas of law practiced by the firm. If you have any financial, real estate, insurance, personnel or other administrative experience, those can also be relevant to a legal assistant position.
Including any official training, volunteer legal work or internship you’ve had in the past may seem obvious, but your entry level legal assistant resume should also highlight how you handled the tasks you performed so that potential employers can see the specific ways you applied the skills they will want from a legal assistant. For example, if you entered information into a database, indicate whether you had errors, if your work had to double checked and what sort of information was contained therein. If you assisted with filing or documents, explain how the system was organized and how you were involved.
The beauty of including these details is that your experience begins to look more like professional legal assistant experience, which helps you stand out from the crowd of fresh-out-of-school applicants.
Key Pitfalls to Avoid
Language so generic that it seems targeted toward any job, not law firms. While the firm will certainly want to know you read their career description, they also want to know you have a legal career in mind. Use language that is customized for the job at hand. For example , instead of "Seeking entry level position as legal assistant" try "Seeking full-time entry level position as a litigation legal assistant in a busy in-house firm."
Too much fluff. Let’s be real. The firm wants to see what you have done in your life that makes you worthy of their time and attention. They do not want to read about your college roommate’s recent promotion or that animal rescue project you took on last summer.
Vague descriptions of duties and accomplishments. The firm is going to interview you. Be honest in your resume, but don’t ignore opportunities to really show what you have done and what makes you an ideal candidate for the position you seek.