Identifying the Legal Secretary Position
There are several core responsibilities that a legal secretary generally has. A legal secretary will draft and proofread letters, petitions, motions, and other filings. These documents are often time sensitive, but the legal secretary should strive to create professional work product. A legal secretary also prepares client bills, maintains confidentiality, communicates with clients and witnesses, and organizes documents into appropriate files. On any given day, a legal secretary may assist in preparing for hearings, processing filed documents, and making appointments or travel arrangements as needed. A legal secretary must follow office procedures precisely , be available to perform similar tasks and duties as requested, and work well with others (or sometimes work independently).
In order to be successful as a legal secretary, certain skills are preferred or required. A legal secretary should be an effective communicator, be punctual and capable following deadlines, demonstrate problem-solving skills and the ability to multitask, and be well acquainted with operating systems and software. Legal secretaries are expected to be familiar with the law, billing practices, and court rules, and to complete other tasks at the direction of an attorney.
Key Components of Your Legal Secretary Resume
Like any resume, the document you submit for your legal secretary job should include a header with contact information, an objective statement, a list of experience, a list of skills, and a listing of education. Here’s what each section should cover:
Contact Information. Your contact information includes your full name, professional title, relevant licenses or certifications, address, phone number, email address, and any other professional social media accounts. This should come at the top of the document, in the center, or under your name in the header.
Objective Statement. In a couple of sentences, explain the position you’re seeking and what you bring to the table. For experienced secretaries, this is an opportunity to speak directly to your qualifications and why you’re an ideal fit. Newcomers to the field can use this space to clearly state your goals and intent to apply for this position in particular, not just any old job you can find.
Experience. Much like any resume, this is a summary of your work history and education, including special projects and accomplishments, grouped by the type of work you’ve done. For example, you may have had some organization and administrative duties that don’t fall under the legal secretary category, this can be summarized in "other work experience." Use bullet points so that it’s easy to read through. Also, be sure to use quantifiable terms where applicable. Help the reader to visualize just how successful you’ve been in your work experiences.
Skills. This is where you can include your hard and soft skills as well as any tools and technology that you’re proficient with. Consider categories such as computer programs, accounting programs, basic office skills, and foreign languages. If there’s space, consider briefly explaining how you’ve applied these skills successfully in the workplace to this point.
Education. Detail your law degrees, certifications, and professional training, including the facility and location of the institutions. If you have a secondary degree or are currently pursuing your degree, it can be useful to include these details, but be sure to indicate that your degree is still in progress.
Writing an Objective Statement
While generally not a requirement in most resumes, a strong objective statement can serve as a unique way to set your resume apart from others and demonstrate your value as a legal secretary. Here are a few examples of objective statements you could use in your resume:
a) Highly organized and detail-oriented legal secretary with strong computer skills and the ability to manage numerous, shifting priorities seeks to leverage eight years of experience in managing busy front-office and back-office functions to support the needs of Smith & Associates.
b) Dedicated, goal-oriented legal secretary with more than eight years supporting a high-volume litigation team adept in clerical functions and extensive administrative tasks seeking to take on new challenges at Peterman and Peterson, LLC.
c) Ethically driven, talented, and conscientious legal secretary with the ability to work efficiently alone or as part of a large, cohesive team seeks to join Smith, Langford & Berkman to support its busy corporate law practice.
Your objective statement should be tailored to the firm or organization to which you are applying, so do some research and customize the language to fit the role.
Fruitful Experience to Highlight on Your Resume
When it comes to crafting a resume that stands out, presenting work history and achievements in an impactful way is key. In the fast-paced world of law firms and corporate legal departments, the ability to showcase your past experience and success is vital to making an impression. Here’s a closer look at how you can present yourself a way that is concise, yet memorable.
Your work history may be the biggest component of your resume, but it doesn’t have to be listed in black and white form. Sure, feel free to check off boxes next to the jobs you’ve held that are most relevant to today, and add them in chronological order into the body of your resume, but you can also create a separate section in which you can highlight some of your greatest accomplishments in each position. This is a great opportunity to think outside the box and bring forth anything that is measurable. Clients, partner and upper management are huge fans of quantifiable results, so the more numbers you can provide, the better.
The following bullet points can help get you started on thinking about how to showcase your past work and accomplishments:
• Executed a complex filing system for 300 clients that increased document tracking by 40%
• Coordinated and scheduled over 30+ court dates in a two-month period
• Managed and organized over 5,000 legal documents and files spanning more than 5 years
• Maintained office supplies and inventory by establishing vendor partnerships and relationships with suppliers
• Created and implemented an organization system that resulted in more than 90% in client retention
• Drafted bills and invoices for legal services, accounting for payments and collections on more than $500,000 in legal fees
• Assisted in the creation of an HR filing system for more than 50 employees, including performance reviews, medical records and salary documents
These bullet points take Dave Lavinsky’s approach to resume writing to the next level. Lavinsky advises to "start the bullet point with three or four compelling words, and then explain and quantify" how you’ve made a difference. "Accompanied by strategic numbers—such as percentages, rankings, financial figures and time savings—these concise, simple sentences are powerful marketing tools," Lavinsky concludes.
Being succinct is essential, especially when you have limited space to work with, but thoroughly showcasing your experience and successes is equally as important. There is a fine line between fluff and meaty text on a resume and it’s important to put your best foot forward and show your future employer what you can do for them and their firm.
Important Legal Skills to Emphasize
When it comes to crafting the perfect legal secretary resume, planning out the body of your resume and knowing where to put your focus is essential. For legal secretary jobs, your skills are going to be some of the most important pieces of information in your resume. Highlighting the skills that a legal secretary must have will show an employer that you’re someone who already knows what it takes to be successful. Because a legal secretary is very much a legal work specialist, knowing the basics of what is expected of you is important. Mastering the fundamental skills associated with the position is paramount. Do you need to have a specialty in all the facets of legal secretary work? No. But being able to demonstrate the skills needed for the job will make your resume a valuable asset during the interviewing process.
The most obvious skill a legal secretary must have is a thorough knowledge of legal terminology and procedures. If you don’t know the basic vocabulary of law, you’ll struggle in this career. Being able to communicate with clients, attorneys and judges is imperative to being successful . You’ve got to be able to jump in a conversation with ease and not miss a step in those discussions. Knowing how to use legal terminology to draft and prepare documents and correspondence is also crucial to the success of a legal secretary. The types of documents you would be preparing include legal briefs, contracts and wills. In addition, you will have to prepare pleadings and discovery documents for cases, which are essentially long and complex word documents. Being able to produce them on command and in a timely manner is critical to the operation of the law office. Drafting, formatting and proofreading of legal documents must be second nature to you.
Other skills that are necessary for legal secretaries involve scheduling and planning. Attorney calendars are extremely busy. Legal secretaries need to be able to manage the schedules of busy attorneys and make planning a reality. You will have to be able to schedule meetings with clients, courts, opposing parties and witnesses. Being organized is imperative to the practice of law. You will also be responsible for researching and investigating issues, follow-up on case management and communications with clients.
Tailoring Your Resume to a Specific Position
The diversity of roles for legal secretaries and assistants means that every job posting will call for a different set of skills. This is why it is important that you carefully read all job descriptions that come your way and note the keywords used. These are the key skills that employers will look for when you submit your resume, so be sure to customize your resume for each position.
It is also essential that you include any information about the firms themselves that is listed in the job description. Stay up to date with any recent changes at the company to show that you have "done your homework" on the firm. This kind of research goes a long way toward showing that you are the right person for the job and can be done easily using resources such as Martindale-Hubbell to stay informed on any recent changes at your target firms.
Many of the responsibilities of a legal secretary or assistant overlap considerably, but the job description may well give priority to one type of task over others. While it is impossible to edit your entire resume, you can make slight adjustments to the order in which your skills are presented, the content of your "Qualifications" or "Summary of Skills" section and the examples that you use in your descriptions to better match the job description.
For example, if the job description emphasizes an ideal candidate who has strong experience with electronic filing, be sure to mention your own experience with ECF early in your resume and link to a paragraph where you describe this experience in more detail. If the listing shows a preference for candidates with some specific industry background, be sure that the relevant industry background is given priority near the top of your resume.
As you review the past jobs listed on your resume, look to see if any of them could be grouped together under a single heading (for example, jobs in which your duties focused primarily on litigation assistance, collections, or another specific area of the law) to shorten your resume and spotlight your relevant experience.
Proofreading and Finalizing Your Resume
Once you’ve completed your law firm administrative assistant resume, it’s vital that you take some time to proofread your resume and ensure that everything is formatted properly. Even just one little typo can send the wrong impression, so it’s best to read and re-read your resume multiple times to confirm its accuracy.
It’s a good idea to use Microsoft Word’s spell and grammar check feature at least once before submitting the resume. If you have a trusted friend or colleague, it could prove valuable to get them to read through the resume and pick out any inconsistencies or mistakes that were otherwise missed.
Before finalizing your resume, it’s also important to ensure that everything is properly spaced, with uniform text size and margins. A resume that appears polished and organized is far more appealing than one that appears haphazardly constructed. Avoid using big blocks of text, especially in the education and employment sections. The ideal format is to create one or two simple paragraphs that list your specific responsibilities and accomplishments in an easily readable manner. Having too much text forces the hiring manager to think extra and makes it more likely they’ll miss out on your most important qualifications.
Make sure you’re using standard fonts as well that aren’t difficult to read. You don’t want to default to a basic font like Times New Roman that might appear standard, but you also don’t want anything too wild that would distract from the content of the resume. Stick with standard fonts like Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS and Palatino Linotype. Additionally, use common font sizes, such as 10 pt., to help with readability.
Legal Secretary Resume Samples to Download
There are several resources online where you can find and download sample legal secretary resumes. These templates are a great starting point for crafting your own unique resume for the following reasons: There are a number of websites that offer free downloads of legal secretary resume templates. These websites often have a broad range of choices, including samples tailored specifically for different specializations. When choosing a sample, look for one that resonates with your experience and achievements. After downloading the sample , make sure to personalize it by adding your own information and customizing it for the specific job you are applying for. Some websites charge a small fee to access their collection of legal secretary resume templates. If you are willing to pay for the convenience and quality of these samples, this could be a good option. Some premium options even provide guidance on what to include in each section of your resume, as well as tips on formatting and style. There are also a number of professional organizations and associations that offer downloadable legal secretary resume templates. These typically have a narrower focus but will have samples geared towards different areas of law and different types of employers.