Corporate Paralegal Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Corporate Paralegal resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
Corporate paralegals work in a variety of industries, helping attorneys and other legal professionals with research and administrative tasks. Because there’s such a broad range of work involved in this type of position, corporate paralegals tend to have diverse skill sets and experience levels.
If you’re ready to make the jump into this growing field or just want to add some new experience to your resume, here are some tips and an example resume to help you write a corporate paralegal resume that hiring managers will love.
How to Write a Corporate Paralegal Resume
Here’s how to write a corporate paralegal resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most important part of your resume because they’re the first thing recruiters will see. And they’re the best way to showcase your experience and skills.
So it’s crucial that you use them to their full potential. And that means using them to describe your accomplishments and results. So rather than saying you “assisted attorneys with legal research,” you could say you “assisted attorneys with legal research for patent infringement lawsuit, resulting in a $10 million settlement.”
The second bullet point is much more powerful because it describes what you did and the outcome of your work. And it also provides a number to help quantify the value of your work.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you apply for a corporate paralegal role, your resume is likely to go through an applicant tracking system (ATS). This system will scan your resume for certain keywords related to the job opening. If your resume doesn’t include enough of the right terms, the ATS might automatically reject your application.
To increase your chances of landing an interview, use this list of keywords as a starting point and then add, remove, and rearrange them as needed:
- Corporate Law
- Corporate Governance
- Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)
- Commercial Litigation
- Legal Advice
- Litigation
- Commercial Contracts
- Dispute Resolution
- Legal Research
- Corporate Governance Compliance
- Due Diligence
- Legal Writing
- Contract Negotiation
- Intellectual Property
- Labor and Employment Law
- Legal Compliance
- Privacy Law
- Document Drafting
- Appeals
- Legal Consulting
- Arbitration
- Property Law
- Torts
- Civil Litigation
- Drafting Agreements
- Administrative Law
- Trials
- Consumer Law
- Document Review
- Hearings
Showcase Your Technical Skills
As a corporate paralegal, you need to be proficient in the use of a variety of software programs in order to complete your work. Programs like Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Google Suite (Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar), and social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are all commonly used by corporate paralegals. Additionally, corporate paralegals may be called on to use specific software programs relevant to their industry, so it’s important to be familiar with as many programs as possible.