ATS Keywords for
Paralegal / Legal Assistant Resumes
36 terms across 6 groups, from our 2026 research into how recruiters actually source Paralegal / Legal Assistant candidates. Recruiter and ATS searches match exact strings — carry the terms your real experience supports, in the wording the posting uses. Never list a term you couldn't back up in an interview: keyword stuffing fails the interview it wins.
The Paralegal / Legal Assistant keyword bank
Titles
- Paralegal
- Legal Assistant
- Litigation Paralegal / Litigation Support Specialist
- Corporate Paralegal
- eDiscovery Specialist
- Law Clerk (Ontario) / Legal Executive (UK)
Core skills
- legal research & writing
- eDiscovery / document review & production
- docketing / e-filing (PACER, ECF)
- drafting pleadings & discovery requests
- trial preparation / deposition summaries
- cite-checking (Bluebook)
eDiscovery & litigation tools
- Relativity / RelativityOne
- Everlaw
- DISCO
- Nuix
- Concordance / CaseMap
- Exterro / Logikcull
Practice & research platforms
- Westlaw
- LexisNexis / Lexis+
- Clio
- iManage / NetDocuments
- MyCase / Smokeball
- CLM tools (Ironclad, ContractPodAi)
Certifications
- NALA CP (Certified Paralegal)
- NALA ACP
- NFPA CRP (PCCE)
- NFPA RP (PACE)
- ACEDS CEDS
- NALS PP
Practice areas
- litigation / civil procedure
- corporate governance / entity management
- M&A due diligence
- real estate / estate planning / immigration
- IP docketing (trademark/patent)
- privilege logs / litigation holds
Embed this keyword bank
Writing about Paralegal / Legal Assistant careers? Paste this self-contained snippet into your post — free to use with the credit link included.
Your next step
Copy the terms that are genuinely true of your experience, then run the free match checker — it shows exactly which of the posting's terms your resume covers and which are missing.
- Carry the same terms into LinkedIn → recruiters run the same searches there — the optimizer builds your headline and About around them.
How recruiters use these terms
Recruiters run Boolean searches that OR together title variants and AND them with must-have skills, then ATS platforms rank applications by how literally the resume matches the posting. That's why the exact product name, certification code, or title variant matters: "SIEM experience" doesn't match a search for a specific platform name, and a title variant you never carry is a search that never finds you. Work the honest terms into your headline, summary, skills block, and experience bullets — placement near the top of page one carries more weight than repetition.
Related pages for Paralegal / Legal Assistant
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