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What does a legal specialist do?

Updated January 8, 2025
6 min read

A legal specialist is responsible for supporting an organization's legal department or law office by performing administrative duties to assist legal operations. Legal specialists are the clients' first point-of-contact, especially on scheduling appointments and responding to legal services inquiries and concerns. They also organize legal documents, prepare and write contracts, and help legal professionals with collecting information for their cases. A legal specialist must have comprehensive knowledge of the legal industry, including law processes and federal regulations.

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Legal specialist responsibilities

Here are examples of responsibilities from real legal specialist resumes:

  • Attain signing authority training certificate to sign motions for relief upon filing complex transactions.
  • Prepare and distribute payroll manage daily office operations and equipment and maintain supplies for office to run effectively.
  • Achieve award for increasing efficiency by extensively communicating with debtors' attorneys and monitoring trustee activities on a daily basis.
  • Review bankruptcy filing notifications and updating appropriate fields and workstations on MSP and LPS systems.
  • Review bankruptcy filings and claims using various proprietary applications including NDC, AACER, and LPS.
  • Utilize client systems such as Newtrak/LPS, AS400, LHIS, NDC and BAPS.
  • Review of e-discovery for a large corporate client on an anti-trust case
  • Assist customers with understanding there options when filing bk pro se.
  • Train employees on the FCPA online search process and on LexisNexis online system.
  • Make adjustments to suspense buckets in MSP base on funds send in from the trustee and the borrower.
  • Develop and present PowerPoint presentations highlighting cases to include potential defense themes base on medical records and nursing knowledge.
  • Perform daily pacer / website reviews for status of bankruptcy and month end system balancing using DRI and LSAMS.
  • Maintain bankruptcy queues in pacer that include all documentations from the court systems, and the attorney's network.
  • Correspond with attorneys through LPS operating system in response to bankruptcy plan objections, plan validations and hearing results.
  • Transition into conducting second level review to ensure team member's POC accuracy and consistent with company policies and procedures.

Legal specialist skills and personality traits

We calculated that 12% of Legal Specialists are proficient in Legal Support, Legal Research, and Proofreading. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Problem-solving skills, and Speaking skills.

We break down the percentage of Legal Specialists that have these skills listed on their resume here:

  • Legal Support, 12%

    Provide internal legal training and legal support to other department

  • Legal Research, 11%

    Provided extensive litigation support through document drafting, legal research and file management; administrative support and data entry.

  • Proofreading, 9%

    Assisted with drafting, amending and proofreading of the Fund s Plan document.

  • Litigation, 9%

    Supported in-house attorneys across the company by interacting with other business units to obtain necessary documents to support litigation cases.

  • Confidentiality Agreements, 5%

    Negotiated and drafted clinical trial agreements and confidentiality agreements between industry sponsors, academic institutions, and contract research organizations.

  • PowerPoint, 4%

    Developed innovative PowerPoint presentation used by the Office of Admissions to market executive support programs to potential students.

Common skills that a legal specialist uses to do their job include "legal support," "legal research," and "proofreading." You can find details on the most important legal specialist responsibilities below.

Analytical skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a legal specialist to have is analytical skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "lawyers interpret the law as it applies to their client’s case." Legal specialists often use analytical skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "conduct initial review and analysis of new litigation filings. "

Problem-solving skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling legal specialist duties is problem-solving skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "lawyers must evaluate information to propose viable solutions, mediate disputes, and reach agreements or settlements for their clients." According to a legal specialist resume, here's how legal specialists can utilize problem-solving skills in their job responsibilities: "analyzed and resolved procedural conflicts using law library and other law references. "

Interpersonal skills. A commonly-found skill in legal specialist job descriptions, "interpersonal skills" is essential to what legal specialists do. Legal specialist responsibilities rely on this skill because "lawyers must build relationships with current and prospective clients, as well as with their colleagues and other members of the legal community." You can also see how legal specialist duties rely on interpersonal skills in this resume example: "assist counsel and paralegals legal research attend court hearings and out of court legal proceedings file maintenance interpersonal communication skills with clients"

Research skills. Lastly, "research skills" is an important element of what a legal specialist does. Legal specialist responsibilities require this skill because "lawyers need to find laws and regulations that apply to a specific matter in order to provide appropriate legal advice for their clients." This resume example highlights how legal specialist duties rely on this skill: "researched litigation issues involving debt collection practices, credit reporting, fraud, and dfs account terms and conditions. "

See the full list of legal specialist skills

The three companies that hire the most legal specialists are:

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Compare different legal specialists

Legal specialist vs. Attorney

Generally, an attorney's responsibility is to advise the client with an ongoing lawsuit on the legal procedures and provide strategies to resolve the case as early as possible. An attorney compiles necessary documents or any records for appeal and client's defense. Attorneys must acquire strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills to mediate disputes and settle pending litigation for the client's best interest. In some cases, an attorney's procedure depends on any evidence and research presented during the trial period. An attorney is expected to present clients on legal proceedings, seeking justice and justifying the law.

The annual salary of attorneys is $54,223 higher than the average salary of legal specialists.While their salaries may differ, the common ground between legal specialists and attorneys are a few of the skills required in each roleacirc;euro;trade;s responsibilities. In both careers, employee duties involve skills like legal research, litigation, and subpoenas.

There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, legal specialist responsibilities require skills like "legal support," "proofreading," "confidentiality agreements," and "powerpoint." Meanwhile a typical attorney has skills in areas such as "juris," "appeals," "trial preparation," and "real estate transactions." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.

The education levels that attorneys earn slightly differ from legal specialists. In particular, attorneys are 3.0% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a legal specialist. Additionally, they're 37.5% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Legal specialist vs. Law clerk

Law clerks are employees in a legal firm who handle clerical tasks for the office. They handle the office's official phone lines, answering incoming calls, and making outgoing calls. They also field office correspondence, often receiving incoming mail and distributing them to their addressees. They manage office documents and ensure that they are correctly filed and labeled in their respective storage bins. Law clerks help make office life more comfortable because they make sure that the office is running well. They also manage appointments and office calendars.

A career as a law clerk brings a higher average salary when compared to the average annual salary of a legal specialist. In fact, law clerks salary is $663 higher than the salary of legal specialists per year.Only some things about these jobs are the same. Take their skills, for example. Legal specialists and law clerks both require similar skills like "legal research," "litigation," and "subpoenas" to carry out their responsibilities.

In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, legal specialist responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "legal support," "proofreading," "confidentiality agreements," and "powerpoint." Meanwhile, a law clerk has duties that require skills in areas such as "legal memos," "pre-trial motions," "summary judgment," and "demand letters." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.

Average education levels between the two professions vary. Law clerks tend to reach similar levels of education than legal specialists. In fact, they're 2.8% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 37.5% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Legal specialist vs. Real estate paralegal

A Real Estate Paralegal helps real estate lawyers with a variety of tasks, such as offering advice to clients, doing research, and preparing documents. They collaborate with landlords, housing managers, or other real estate personnel.

On average, real estate paralegals earn higher salaries than legal specialists, with a $13,134 difference per year.By looking over several legal specialists and real estate paralegals resumes, we found that both roles require similar skills in their day-to-day duties, such as "legal research," "litigation," and "subpoenas." But beyond that, the careers look very different.

There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a legal specialist is likely to be skilled in "legal support," "proofreading," "confidentiality agreements," and "powerpoint," while a typical real estate paralegal is skilled in "estoppel," "affidavits," "real estate transactions," and "lenders."

When it comes to education, real estate paralegals tend to earn similar degree levels compared to legal specialists. In fact, they're 4.8% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 7.3% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

Legal specialist vs. Contractor-paralegal

A Contractor-Paralegal works for a law firm or corporate legal department for a specified amount of time, or for a specified task. They can be specialized in the entertainment industry or in providing services to healthcare companies and insurance providers.

Contractor-paralegals average a higher salary than the annual salary of legal specialists. The difference is about $5,433 per year.While their salaries may vary, legal specialists and contractor-paralegals both use similar skills to perform their duties. Resumes from both professions include skills like "legal research," "litigation," and "confidentiality agreements. "While some skills are required in each professionacirc;euro;trade;s responsibilities, there are some differences to note. "legal support," "proofreading," "administrative tasks," and "hr" are skills that commonly show up on legal specialist resumes. On the other hand, contractor-paralegals use skills like contract database, trial preparation, contract review, and contract paralegal on their resumes.The average resume of contractor-paralegals showed that they earn similar levels of education compared to legal specialists. So much so that theyacirc;euro;trade;re 2.2% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 3.2%.

Types of legal specialist

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.