Legal Secretary CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a litigation legal secretary with nine years in law firms who supports three solicitors. The name and the firms are invented. If you work in conveyancing, private client or corporate, keep the structure and swap the filings, systems and deadlines for yours; there is a conveyancing personal statement further down.

Legal secretary hiring is usually done by an office manager, a practice manager or the solicitor you would sit with. They read for risk, because a missed deadline means a negligence claim.

• Practice area. Litigation, conveyancing, private client, corporate, immigration and family law use different documents and different deadlines. Firms want the same area, or something close.
• Filing experience. Which courts and which system. "Files through CE-File and HMCTS online services" is a hiring signal on its own.
• Key dates. Say who owned the diary and how you calculated dates. If you have a clean deadline record, put the number of years on the page.
• Systems. Document management (iManage, NetDocuments, Worldox), billing and case management (Aderant, Elite 3E, Peppermint, Proclaim, LEAP, Clio) and digital dictation (BigHand, Winscribe). Firms filter for exactly these names.
• Word skills. Formatting a 60-page document with automatic numbering, cross-references and a table of authorities is a real, tested skill. Say you can do it.

“The first thing I look for is whether the person has diarised deadlines themselves, not just typed what a lawyer told them. Second is e-filing, by name of the system. Everything else on a legal secretary CV can be trained.”

The fastest way to make your CV look like a real legal secretary's is to name the documents you touch every week. Use the list that matches the job advert.

• Litigation: claim forms, particulars of claim, defences, applications, lists of documents, witness statements, trial bundles, tables of authorities, CE-File and HMCTS online filing.
• Conveyancing and property: contract packs, searches, transfer deeds, completion statements, mortgage documents, SDLT returns (LTT in Wales), HM Land Registry applications and post-completion work.
• Wills and probate: wills, lasting powers of attorney, trust documents, probate applications, inheritance tax forms, estate accounts, and Court of Protection deputyship applications.
• Corporate and commercial: Companies House filings, articles of association, board minutes and written resolutions, completion checklists, signing pages and completion bibles.
• Family law: divorce applications, Form E financial statements, child arrangements applications, non-molestation orders, mediation and hearing scheduling.
• Immigration: Home Office application forms and supporting bundles, submission receipts and case status tracking, client document checklists, deadlines for responses to Home Office requests.

Three or four lines: years, practice area, fee earners supported, filing systems, software, one reliability number. Use a career objective only if you have less than a year in a firm.

Legal secretary CVs are usually a list of verbs with no scale. Add the volume, the system, or the accuracy record, and the same duty starts doing work.

Group the list. Firms filter CVs on software names, so put those where they can be seen.

• Court and filing: CE-File and HMCTS online services, service of documents, witness summonses, Civil Procedure Rules and deadline calculation, key dates diary
• Software: iManage, NetDocuments or Worldox; Aderant, Elite 3E, Peppermint, Proclaim or LEAP for billing and case management; Clio; BigHand or Winscribe for dictation; Adobe Acrobat with pagination and redaction; Word, Outlook and Excel
• Document work: drafting from templates, tracked changes and document comparison, table of authorities and table of contents, audio typing from digital dictation, proofreading and citation format checks

Then the judgment skills, which are what separate a good legal secretary from a fast typist:

• Client confidentiality and legal professional privilege, including handling privileged material and conflict checks
• Deadline discipline: reading a rule, calculating the date, and confirming it back to the fee earner
• Managing three or four fee earners with competing priorities without letting anything drop
• Clear, correct written English, since your drafts go out over a solicitor's name
• Typing speed with accuracy (state your words per minute) and comfort with digital dictation

No law requires a legal secretary to hold a qualification, so nothing here is required. These are credentials UK firms recognise, and each can be checked, so only list what you hold.

• ILSPA (the Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs) offers legal secretary qualifications by distance learning, including its Legal Secretaries Diploma. Name the exact qualification and the year.
• CILEX offers legal qualifications that suit legal secretaries who want to move towards paralegal or legal executive work, studied part-time alongside the job. Give the level and the year.
• Microsoft Office Specialist (Word Expert) or an advanced Word course is genuinely useful in a firm. List the exam or course and the year.
• Chartered Legal Executive status and the SQE are routes to qualifying as a lawyer, not secretarial credentials. Only claim them if you have passed the assessments.
• Education: GCSEs including English and maths, A-levels or a BTEC, and a Level 2 or 3 business administration or legal secretarial course are common and worth listing. A degree is not expected.
• Nice to have: a BigHand or Winscribe dictation course, an Adobe Acrobat course, or CE-File training run by your firm.

Firms do hire people with no firm experience, usually into a floating secretary or legal administrative assistant role. They are checking whether you can handle confidential material, meet dates and write cleanly.

• Put a Legal Skills and Training block above your work history: your legal secretarial course or qualification, any units in civil litigation or legal writing, and any work placement hours.
• Translate office experience into legal terms. Managing a director's diary becomes deadline and appointment management; handling HR records becomes confidential file handling.
• Any GP surgery, insurance or lettings agency job counts, because all three involve deadlines, records and data protection rules.
• Add a typing speed and your Word skill level. Both get tested at the interview, sometimes on a live document.
• Take an audio typing or digital dictation course before you apply if you have never used dictation. It is a small cost and dictation appears in job adverts constantly.
• Say you are willing to start as a floating secretary or in the file room. Many long legal careers start there and practice managers know it.

• One page early on, two pages once you have several years in firms, which is the UK norm. Legal is a conservative field where a clean, well-organised second page is accepted.
• Traditional layout, no columns, no photo, no date of birth, no graphics. Firms are conservative and many use an applicant tracking system such as viRecruit or Workday.
• Put your practice area in the job titles: "Legal Secretary, Civil Litigation" beats "Legal Secretary" on its own.
• Mirror the job advert exactly: "legal secretary", "legal administrative assistant", "audio typing", "digital dictation", "CE-File", "key dates", "diary management", "disclosure", "bundles", "billing", "conflict checks", "iManage", "Aderant", "Clio".
• Spell out systems the first time, then abbreviate. Not every reader knows what a TOA is, and a recruiter screening the first pass often does not.
• Proofread twice. In a job where typos in a court document can cost a client, a typo on your CV is disqualifying.
• Save as PDF named Lastname-Firstname-Legal-Secretary-CV.pdf unless the job advert asks for Word.

One practical note about references. Law firms often take up references before confirming an offer, and they ask the solicitor you supported, not HR. Line up one solicitor reference before you apply.