The skills, tools and soft skills paralegal job descriptions keep asking for, grouped and ranked, with before/after bullets to show you how to use them.
Law firm and in-house legal postings filter paralegals on practice area, procedure and software. A litigation paralegal posting will name discovery, e-filing, deposition preparation and a document review platform; a corporate posting will name entity management, closings and minute books. Applicant tracking systems match those exact terms, and attorneys reading the shortlist want to see that you can work under the court rules and deadlines of their practice. The groups below cover the vocabulary of US and Canadian paralegal postings, and the licensing difference between the two countries.
Most mid-size and large employers in the US and Canada receive applications through an applicant tracking system such as Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS or Taleo. The system parses your resume into fields (titles, dates, skills) and lets recruiters search and rank candidates by the terms in the job description. Some systems only match exact words; others recognize close variants. Either way, the safest approach is to use the same wording as the posting for every skill you genuinely have — inside a bullet that explains what you did with it.
Methods, domain knowledge and techniques that describe what you can do as a paralegal.
Say what you drafted and for which matters. "Drafted motions and discovery responses for commercial litigation" beats "legal documents".
Litigation postings filter hard on these. Name the court level or jurisdiction if relevant (state court, federal court, Superior Court).
Transactional practices have their own vocabulary. Include only the matters you supported.
Practice area is often the first filter. Lead your summary with yours.
Named software and platforms. Spell them exactly as the posting does — "Westlaw", not a generic description.
Research platforms and document management systems are frequent filters. Write them as the posting does.
Postings name them, but a single word proves little: pair each one with an action in a bullet.
Soft skills are hard to prove with a single word. Show each one through an action: who you worked with, what you explained, what you resolved. An ATS may still match the phrase, and the recruiter gets evidence instead of a claim.
In the US, paralegals are generally not licensed; voluntary credentials include the NALA Certified Paralegal (CP), the NFPA Paralegal CORE Registered (CRP) or PACE Registered Paralegal (RP), and an ABA-approved paralegal certificate. In Canada, Ontario is the exception: paralegals there are licensed by the Law Society of Ontario (written "Licensed Paralegal, LSO") and can represent clients in some matters; in other provinces the role is closer to a law clerk or legal assistant. List exactly what you hold.
The biggest difference is regulation. In Ontario, "paralegal" is a licensed profession under the Law Society of Ontario, so use the title only if you hold the licence; elsewhere in Canada the same work is often titled "law clerk" (common in Ontario too) or "legal assistant". In the US the title is unregulated but employers look for ABA-approved education or NALA/NFPA credentials. Procedure words also differ: US postings mention PACER and state e-filing systems, Canadian postings mention provincial court e-filing and, in Quebec, civil law and French.
In both countries, leave out your photo, date of birth and marital status, keep the resume to one or two pages, and list experience in reverse chronological order.
Vague lines hide your keywords. Name the skill, the tool and what it was for. Keywords are highlighted in each rewrite.
Helped attorneys with cases.
Managed discovery for six civil litigation matters, including document review in Relativity, privilege logs and production sets.
Filed documents and kept the calendar.
Prepared deposition preparation outlines and exhibit binders, handled e-filing through PACER and kept calendaring court deadlines current for three attorneys.
Did research for the lawyers.
Performed legal research on Westlaw and drafted first versions of motions and legal memoranda for attorney review.
Detail-oriented legal professional who loves the law.
Litigation Paralegal experienced in discovery, e-filing and trial preparation in civil litigation, using Westlaw, Relativity and Clio to meet tight court deadlines.
These are examples to adapt, not real employer results: change the tools, scope and outcome to what you actually did. To see the keywords inside complete resumes, look at our paralegal resume examples (entry level, mid level and senior). Browse all administrative, HR and legal resume examples too.
Four places carry keywords. Use each for what it does best.
Two or three lines that repeat the job title from the posting and the three or four skills it stresses most. The first text the parser and the recruiter read.
They carry the most weight because they show the keyword in use. Start with an action verb, name the tool or skill, say what it was for.
A short list grouped by type, in the posting's exact spelling. No stars or percentage bars: parsers cannot read them.
Keep your real job titles and use standard section names (Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications) so keywords land in the right field.
Keyword lists are a starting point. The job you are applying to is the real test.
Read the posting once for meaning, then a second time with a highlighter: mark every tool, method, certification and responsibility it names, and note which ones appear under "required" versus "nice to have". Compare that list with your resume. For each required term you genuinely have, make sure it appears at least once in a bullet; for each one you lack, do not add it — prepare to address it in the interview instead.
The free ATS resume checker does this comparison for you: paste the job description and your resume and it lists the matched and missing keywords. If you want a version of your resume rewritten for that posting, the AutoApplyMax AI resume builder can generate a tailored resume from your own experience (the free plan includes 1 AI credit per month) — it reorders and rephrases what is already true rather than inventing experience.
Short answers to the questions people ask before tailoring their resume.
The most important keywords are the ones in the job description you are applying to. This page groups the terms that paralegal postings in the US and Canada use again and again — for example legal research, drafting pleadings, discovery, document review — but each employer weights them differently. Copy the required skills from the posting, then check which of them you can honestly show.
Use your real title and mention the other where it applies. In Ontario, only licensed paralegals should use "paralegal"; "law clerk" postings often ask for the same litigation or corporate skills.
No. Lead with the one or two you know best and that match the posting. A long list makes your experience look thin in each area.
List the ones you used. They are similar, but the ATS matches names, so include the one the posting names if you know it.
Use caseload, deadlines met, volume of documents reviewed, a process you set up (a deadline calendar, a closing checklist) or a trial you helped prepare.
No. Repeating a word many times, or hiding keywords in white text, does not help with modern ATS ranking and is obvious to the recruiter who reads the resume next. Each keyword should appear where you actually used the skill.
Many of these skills transfer. Compare lists if you are switching roles.