Residential Real Estate Legal Assistant for U.S. Law Firm (July 2026)

Schedule: Part-time. About 20-25 hours per week.

Time Zone: Must be able to overlap with U.S. Central Time

Compensation: Based on experience.

Initial trial period: 60 days at $6/hour. Compensation may be reviewed after the trial period based on performance, reliability, experience, and fit.

About the Role:
We are a U.S.-based real estate law firm looking for a detail-oriented, organized, and proactive legal assistant to support residential real estate transactions from contract to closing.

This is not a brokerage transaction coordinator role, listing coordinator role, lead management role, cold-calling role, or general real estate VA role.

We are looking for someone who understands real estate transactions and can work in a legal environment, including attorney review, inspection deadlines, title coordination, lender coordination, closing preparation, client communication, document organization, and attorney escalation.

Main Responsibilities:
- Open and set up new real estate matters
- Review contracts and emails to identify key transaction details
- Enter and update client, agent, lender, attorney, and title company contact information
- Track key dates, deadlines, and missing information
- Coordinate with real estate agents, lenders, title companies, opposing counsel, and clients
- Prepare standard documents and emails using templates
- Organize emails, documents, and matter files
- Follow up on missing information or pending items
- Prepare files for attorney review
- Flag unusual, unclear, urgent, or non-standard issues for the attorney
- Support closing preparation and post-closing follow-up
- Maintain task lists and update matter status clearly

Experience We Are Looking For

Strong candidates will have experience with some of the following:
- U.S. residential real estate transactions
- Contract-to-closing coordination
- Buyer-side and/or seller-side transaction support
- Real estate law firm support
- Real estate transaction coordination
- Title company, escrow, mortgage, or brokerage transaction support
- Attorney review process
- Inspection deadlines
- Lender coordination
- Title coordination
- HOA or condo document requests
- Closing preparation
- Closing statements or settlement statements
- Real estate document organization

Experience with Illinois residential real estate transactions is a plus, but not required.

Tools and Systems

Experience with these tools is helpful, but not required:
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft To Do
- Microsoft SharePoint or OneDrive
- Smokeball, Clio, Odoo, or similar practice management systems
- Adobe Acrobat
- E-signature platforms
- Real estate transaction management systems

You do not need to know every system before starting, but you must be comfortable learning new tools and following detailed SOPs.

This Role Is a Good Fit If You Are:
- Able to think in context, not just complete isolated tasks
- Very organized
- Detail-oriented
- Careful with deadlines
- Comfortable following written instructions and SOPs
- Able to communicate clearly in writing
- Proactive about asking good questions
- Able to notice when something needs attorney review
- Comfortable working with many emails, documents, deadlines, and exceptions
- Reliable, consistent, and accountable
- Calm under pressure
- Interested in long-term work with a small professional team
- Impeccable written and spoken English

This Role Is Not a Good Fit If:
- Your real estate experience is mainly brokerage support, listing coordination, showing coordination, lead generation, CRM updates, social media, cold calling, or agent admin
- You are looking for a general real estate VA role rather than a legal-support role inside a law firm
- You are hoping this role is mostly posting listings, updating CRMs, or making things look nice in Canva
- You have worked around real estate transactions but have not been responsible for contract-to-closing file coordination
- You treat each instruction as a separate task without considering the full status of the matter
- You only have general admin or data entry experience
- You have never worked with U.S. real estate transactions
- Your legal experience is mainly with local court filings, municipal courts, litigation, criminal matters, family law, immigration, or court-based legal work outside the U.S.
- You have general legal experience but no direct experience with U.S. residential real estate transactions
- Your real estate experience is limited to property research, data entry, lead generation, cold calling, or CRM updates
- You need constant reminders about what to do next
- You are uncomfortable reading contracts, emails, and transaction documents
- You are not detail-oriented
- You do not like documenting your work clearly
- You struggle to follow multi-step processes
- You prefer simple repetitive tasks with no judgment involved
- You believe “I did not know” is a good replacement for asking a clear question
- You think this job posting is too long to read carefully

Important Expectation:
> This role requires initiative, context, and judgment.

> The best real estate transaction coordinators do not treat each instruction as an isolated task. They constantly ask: What is the status of this matter, what has already happened, and what needs to happen next without creating confusion, duplication, or risk?

For example, before sending a document, a strong coordinator should think through whether the document is complete, whether it is the correct version, who needs to receive it, whether it has already been sent, whether it is meant for internal or external use, and whether sending it could create a deadline, legal issue, duplicate file, or client confusion.

You will not be expected to provide legal advice. However, you will be expected to understand the context of the matter, notice when something is missing, unusual, unclear, urgent, or outside the normal process, and flag those items for attorney review.

For example, a strong tea ---------- mber should be able to notice when:
- The contract is missing the buyer’s attorney information
- The inspection deadline appears to be tomorrow
- The title company contact is not listed
- The client’s phone number is missing
- A transaction appears to involve a condo or HOA
- An issue should be flagged for attorney review

How to Apply:
Please send your resume, a link to your OnlineJobs.ph profile, and a cover letter answering the questions below to ---------- A short summary of your experience with U.S. residential real estate transactions
- Have you supported buyer-side transactions, seller-side transactions, both?
- Describe one U.S. residential real estate transaction you personally supported from contract to closing
- What stages did you handle?
- Who did you coordinate with?
- What documents or deadlines were involved?
- What were you personally responsible for?
- What real estate, legal, title, mortgage, or transaction management tools have you used?
- What is your availability in U.S. Central Time?
- What is your expected hourly rate or monthly salary?

To show that you read the full job post carefully and can follow written instructions, please include the words "yellow pumpkin" in the subject line of your email.

Applications that do not answer these questions or do not follow the application instructions will not be reviewed.