Lawyer keywords for resume and LinkedIn
Legal recruiter searches start with practice area and stack skill terms on top: corporate attorney plus due diligence, litigation associate plus depositions. ATS filters match exact phrases, so a resume that says managed pre-trial fact development never surfaces for a discovery search. Mirror the posting's own language for your practice area, then carry the concrete skills, contract drafting, legal research, motion practice, inside real sentences about real matters rather than a bare list.
Tools and platforms (12)
- westlaw
- lexisnexis
- practical law
- imanage
- netdocuments
- relativity
- docusign
- adobe acrobat
- microsoft word
- sharepoint
- clio
- pacer
Hard skills (12)
- contract drafting
- contract negotiation
- due diligence
- legal research
- legal writing
- litigation
- discovery
- depositions
- motion practice
- regulatory compliance
- corporate governance
- matter management
Soft skills (7)
- attention to detail
- communication
- judgment
- client service
- discretion
- time management
- cross-functional collaboration
Where these belong
Put your practice area and two signature skills in the headline, contract negotiation next to in-house counsel, since the headline is the first thing a recruiter reads in search results. Fill the Skills section to its limit with the exact phrases postings use, and work terms like due diligence and legal research into experience bullets as real matters, not a comma-separated dump. Before applying, run the posting through the Job Description Keyword Finder to see which terms it repeats, then check your resume against it with Resume Keyword Match and close the gaps it flags.
Honesty rule: add a term only if it is true of you. Keyword coverage opens doors; interviews walk through them.
Make it yours: Resume Keyword Match
Lists orient, postings decide. Paste your resume and a real job description to see your true coverage and gaps in one pass.
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