Contractor-paralegal resume examples from 2026

Your resume summary sums up your experience and skills, making it easy for hiring managers to understand your qualifications at a glance. Here are some tips to writing the most important 2-4 sentences of your resume:

Step 1: Start with your professional title, or the one you aspire to.

Step 2: Detail your years of experience in contractor-paralegal-related roles and your industry experience.

Step 3: What are your biggest professional wins? Here is your opportunity to highlight your strongest accomplishments by placing them at the start of your resume.

Step 4: Don't forget, your goal is to summarize your experience. Keep it short and sweet, so it's easy for recruiters to quickly understand why you're a great hire.

These four steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some contractor-paralegal interviews.

Your Skills section is a place to list all relevant skills and abilities. Here is how to make the most of your skills section and make sure you have the right keywords:

1. You often need to include the exact keywords from the job description in your resume. Look at the job listing and consider which of the listed skills you have experience with, along with related skills.
2. Include as many relevant hard skills and soft skills as possible from the listing.
3. Use the most up to date and accurate terms. Don't forget to be specific.

These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some contractor-paralegal interviews.

Next you should include your work experience. Structure your work experience section by listing your most recent experience first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order.

Start with your job title, company name, city, and state on the left. Align dates in month and year format on the right-hand side.

Include only recent, relevant jobs. Avoid including work experience over 20 years to avoid ageism.

Beneath each job, you should have bullet points to emphasize why you're the perfect fit for the contractor-paralegal.

Effective job bullet points do more than just describe your job duties. Instead, they should be specific and measurable accomplishments. Here are some strategies to mastering job bullet points:

• Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
• Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
• Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

Here are great bullet points from contractor-paralegal resumes:

Employers are looking for a few things when looking at the Education section of your resume:

• The highest degree you have achieved.
• TWhere you attended school, and the dates (Although if you graduated some time ago, leave the date off to avoid ageism)
• TField of study
• TAny honors, relevant coursework, achievements, or pertinent activities

Here are some examples of good education entries for resumes:

Certifications can be a crucial part of your resume. Many jobs have required certifications.

Start simple. Include the full name of the certification. It's also good to mention the organization that issued the certification. Next, specify when you obtained the certification.

If you have any of these certifications, be sure to include them on your contractor-paralegal resume:

1. Certified Paralegal/Certified Legal Assistant (CP/CLA)
2. Advanced Paralegal Certification (APC)